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diff --git a/.gitattributes b/.gitattributes new file mode 100644 index 0000000..6833f05 --- /dev/null +++ b/.gitattributes @@ -0,0 +1,3 @@ +* text=auto +*.txt text +*.md text diff --git a/11694-0.txt b/11694-0.txt new file mode 100644 index 0000000..1fd50b9 --- /dev/null +++ b/11694-0.txt @@ -0,0 +1,1264 @@ +*** START OF THE PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK 11694 *** + +THE ROMANES LECTURE +1900 + +The Evolution of English Lexicography + +BY JAMES A.H. MURRAY +M.A., LL.D., D.C.L., PH.D. + +DELIVERED IN THE SHELDONIAN THEATRE, OXFORD, JUNE 22, 1900 + + + + +THE EVOLUTION OF ENGLISH LEXICOGRAPHY + + +When the 'Act to facilitate the provision of Allotments for the +Labouring Classes' was before the House of Commons in 1887, a +well-known member for a northern constituency asked the Minister who +had charge of the measure for a definition of the term _allotment_, +which occurred so often in the Bill. The Minister somewhat brusquely +told his interrogator to 'look in the Dictionary,' at which there was, +according to the newspapers, 'a laugh.' The member warmly protested +that, being called upon to consider a measure dealing with things +therein called 'Allotments', a term not known to English Law, nor +explained in the Bill itself, he had a right to ask for a definition. +But the only answer he received was 'Johnson's Dictionary! Johnson's +Dictionary!' at which, according to the newspapers, the House gave +'another laugh,' and the interrogator subsided. The real humour of the +situation, which was unfortunately lost upon the House of Commons, +was, that as agricultural allotments had not been thought of in the +days of Dr. Johnson, no explanation of the term in this use is to be +found in Johnson's Dictionary; as, however, this happened to be +unknown, alike to the questioner and to the House, the former missed a +chance of 'scoring' brilliantly, and the House the chance of a third +laugh, this time at the expense of the Minister. But the replies of +the latter are typical of the notions of a large number of persons, +who habitually speak of 'the Dictionary,' just as they do of 'the +Bible,' or 'the Prayer-book,' or 'the Psalms'; and who, if pressed as +to the authorship of these works, would certainly say that 'the +Psalms' were composed by David, and 'the Dictionary' by Dr. Johnson. + +I have met persons of intelligence who supposed that if Dr. Johnson +was not the sole author of 'the Dictionary'--a notion which, in view +of the 'pushfulness' wherewith, in recent times, Dictionaries, +American and other, have been pressed upon public notice, is now not +so easily tenable--he was, at least, the 'original author,' from whose +capacious brain that work first emanated. Whereas, in truth, Dr. +Johnson had been preceded by scores of workers, each of whom had added +his stone or stones to the lexicographic cairn, which had already +risen to goodly proportions when Johnson made to it his own splendid +contribution. + +For, the English Dictionary, like the English Constitution, is the +creation of no one man, and of no one age; it is a growth that has +slowly developed itself adown the ages. Its beginnings lie far back in +times almost prehistoric. And these beginnings themselves, although +the English Dictionary of to-day is lineally developed from them, were +neither Dictionaries, nor even English. As to their language, they +were in the first place and principally Latin: as to their substance, +they consisted, in large part at least, of _glosses_. They were Latin, +because at the time to which we refer, the seventh and eighth +centuries of our era, Latin was in Western Europe the only language of +books, the learning of Latin the portal to all learning. And they were +_glosses_ in this wise: the possessor of a Latin book, or the member +of a religious community which were the fortunate possessors of +half-a-dozen books, in his ordinary reading of this literature, here +and there came across a difficult word which lay outside the familiar +Latin vocabulary. When he had ascertained the meaning of this, he +often, as a help to his own memory, and a friendly service to those +who might handle the book after him, wrote the meaning over the word +in the original text, in a smaller hand, sometimes in easier Latin, +sometimes, if he knew no Latin equivalent, in a word of his own +vernacular. Such an explanatory word written over a word of the text +is a _gloss_. Nearly all the Latin MSS. of religious or practical +treatises, that have come down to us from the Middle Ages, contain +examples of such glosses, sometimes few, sometimes many. It may +naturally be supposed that this glossing of MSS. began in Celtic and +Teutonic, rather than in Romanic lands. In the latter, the old Latin +was not yet so dead, nor the vulgar idioms that were growing out of +it, as yet so distinct from it, as to render the glossing of the one +by the other needful. The relation of Latin to, say, the Romanic of +Provence, was like that of literary English to Lancashire or Somerset +dialect; no one thinks of glossing a literary English book by +Somersetshire word-forms; for, if he can read at all, it is the +literary English that he does read. So if the monk of Burgundy or +Provence could read at all, it was the Book-Latin that he could and +did read. But, to the Teuton or the Celt, Latin was an entirely +foreign tongue, the meaning of whose words he could not guess by any +likeness to his own; by him Latin had been acquired by slow and +painful labour, and to him the gloss was an important aid. To the +modern philologist, Teutonic or Celtic, these glosses are very +precious; they have preserved for us a large number of Old English, +Old Irish, Old German words that occur nowhere else, and which, but +for the work of the old glossators, would have been lost for ever. No +inconsiderable portion of the oldest English vocabulary has been +recovered entirely from these interlinear glosses; and we may +anticipate important additions to that vocabulary when Professor +Napier gives us the volume in which he has been gathering up all the +unpublished glosses that yet remain in MSS. + +In process of time it occurred to some industrious reader that it +would be a useful exercise of his industry, to collect out of all the +manuscripts to which he had access, all the glosses that they +contained, and combine them in a list. In this compact form they could +be learned by heart, thus extending the vocabulary at his command, and +making him independent of the interlinear glosses, and they could also +be used in the school-teaching of pupils and neophytes, so as sensibly +to enlarge their stock of Latin words and phrases. A collection of +glosses, thus copied out and thrown together into a single list, +constituted a _Glossarium_ or _Glossary_; it was the remote precursor +of the seventeenth-century 'Table Alphabetical,' or 'Expositor of Hard +Words.' + +Such was one of the fountain-heads of English lexicography; the other +is to be found in the fact that in those distant days, as in our own, +the learning of Latin was the acquisition of a foreign tongue which +involved the learning of a grammar and of a vocabulary. Both grammar +and vocables were probably in the main communicated by oral teaching, +by the living voice of the master, and were handed down by oral +tradition from generation to generation. The stock of vocables was +acquired by committing to memory classified lists of words; lists of +names of parts of the body, lists of the names of domestic animals, of +wild beasts, of fishes, of trees, of heavenly bodies, of geographical +features, of names of relationship and kindred, of ranks and orders of +men, of names of trades, of tools, of arms, of articles of clothing, +of church furniture, of diseases, of virtues and vices, and so on. +Such lists of vocables, with their meaning in the vulgar tongue, were +also at times committed to paper or parchment leaves, and a collection +of these constituted a _Vocabularium_ or _Vocabulary_. + +In their practical use the Vocabulary and the Glossary fulfilled +similar offices; and so they were often combined; the possessor of a +Vocabulary enlarged it by the addition of a Glossary, which he or some +one before him had copied out and collected from the glossed +manuscripts of his bibliotheca. He extended it by copying into it +vocabularies and glossaries borrowed from other scholars; he lent his +own collection to be similarly copied by others. Several such +collections exist formed far back in Old English times, the composite +character of which, partly glossary, partly vocabulary, reveals itself +upon even a cursory examination. + +As these manuscript lists came to be copied and re-copied, it was seen +that their usefulness would be increased by putting the words and +phrases into alphabetical order, whereby a particular word could be +more readily found than by looking for it in a promiscuous list of +some hundreds or thousands of words. The first step was to bring +together all the words having the same first letter. The copyist +instead of transcribing the glossary right on as it stood, extracted +first all the words beginning with A; then he went through it again +picking out all the words beginning with B; then a third time for +those with C, and so on with D, E, and the rest, till he had +transcribed the whole, and his copy was no longer in the fortuitous +disorder of the original, but in what we call _first-letter_ order. + +A still later scribe making a copy of this vocabulary, or possibly +combining two or three lists already in first-letter order, carried +the alphabetical arrangement one stage further; instead of +transcribing the A-words as they stood, he went through them, picking +out first those that began with Aa-, then those in Ab-, then those in +Ac-, and so on, to Az. Then he did the same with the B-words, picking +out first all in Ba-, then Be-, Bi-, Bl-, Bo-, Br-, Bu-, By-; and so +exhausting the B-words. Thus, at length, in this second recension, the +Vocabulary stood, not yet completely alphabetical, but alphabetized as +far as the second letter of each word. + +All these stages can actually be seen in four of the most ancient +glossaries of English origin that have come down to us, known +respectively, from the libraries to which they now belong, as the +Leiden, the Epinal, the Erfurt, and the Corpus (the last at Corpus +Christi College, Cambridge). The Leiden Glossary represents the +earliest stage of such a work, being really, in the main, a collection +of smaller glossaries, or rather sets of glosses, each set entered +under the name of the treatise from which it was extracted, the words +in each being left in the order in which they happened to come in the +treatise or work, without any further arrangement, alphabetical or +other. It appears also to incorporate in a final section some small +earlier vocabularies or lists of names of animals and other classes of +things. In order to discover whether any particular word occurs in +this glossary, the whole work from beginning to end must be looked +through. The first advance upon this is seen in the Epinal Glossary, +which uses part at least of the materials of the Leiden, incorporating +with them many others. This glossary has advanced to _first-letter_ +order: all the A-words come together, followed by all the B-words, and +so on to Z, but there is no further arrangement under the individual +letters[1]. There are nearly fourteen columns of words beginning with +A, containing each about forty entries; the whole of these 550 entries +must be looked through to see if a given word occurs in this glossary. +The third stage is represented by the Corpus Glossary, which contains +the materials of its predecessors, and a great deal more, and in which +the alphabetical arrangement has been carried as far as the second +letter of each word: thus the first ninety-five words explained begin +with Ab-, and the next seventy-eight with Ac-, and so on, but the +alphabetization goes no further[2]; the glossary is in _second-letter_ +order. In at least one glossary of the tenth century, contained in a +MS. of the British Museum (Harl. 3376), the alphabetical arrangement +has been carried as far as the third letter, beyond which point it +does not appear to have advanced. + +The MS. of the Corpus Glossary dates to the early part of the eighth +century; the Epinal and Erfurt--although the MS. copies that have come +down to us are not older, or not so old--must from their nature go +back as glossaries to a still earlier date, and the Leiden to an +earlier still; so that we carry back these beginnings of lexicography +in England to a time somewhere between 600 and 700 A.D., and probably +to an age not long posterior to the introduction of Christianity in +the south of England at the end of the sixth century. Many more +vocabularies were compiled between these early dates and the eleventh +century; and it is noteworthy that those ancient glossaries and +vocabularies not only became fuller and more orderly as time advanced, +but they also became more _English_. For, as I have already mentioned, +the primary purpose of the glosses was to explain difficult _Latin_ +words; this was done at first, whenever possible, by easier Latin +words; apparently, only when none such were known, was the explanation +given in the vernacular, in Old English. In the Epinal Glossary the +English words are thus relatively few. In the first page they number +thirty out of 117, and in some pages they do not amount to half that +number. In the Corpus Glossary they have become proportionally more +numerous; and in the glossaries that follow, the Latin explanations +are more and more eliminated and replaced by English ones, until the +vocabularies of the tenth and eleventh centuries, whether arranged +alphabetically or under classified headings, are truly Latin-English: +every Latin word given is explained by an English one; and we see +clearly that a new aim had gradually evolved itself; the object was no +longer to explain difficult Latin words, but to give the English +equivalents of as many words as possible, and thus practically to +provide a Latin Dictionary for the use of Englishmen[3]. + +Learning and literature, science and art, had attained to fair +proportions in England, and in the Old English tongue, when their +progress was arrested by the Norman Conquest. The Norman Conquest +brought to England law and organization, and welded the country into a +political unity; but it overthrew Old English learning and literary +culture. In literary culture the Normans were about as far behind the +people whom they conquered as the Romans were when they made +themselves masters of Greece; and it was not till some two generations +after the Conquest, that learning and literature regained in England +somewhat of the position which they had occupied two centuries +earlier. And this new literary culture was naturally confined to the +French dialect of the conquerors, which had become the language of +court and castle, of church and law, of chivalry and the chase; while +the rich and cultured tongue of Alfred and Ælfric was left for +generations without literary employment, during which time it lost +nearly all its poetical, philosophical, scientific, and artistic +vocabulary, retaining only the words of common life and everyday +use[4]. And for more than 300 years after the Conquest English +lexicography stood still. Between 1066 and 1400, Wright-Wülcker shows +only two meagre vocabularies, occupying some twenty-four columns of +his volume. One of these, of the twelfth century, is only an echo of +the earlier literary age, a copy of a pre-Conquest glossary, which +some scribe who could still read the classical tongue of the old West +Saxon Court, transliterated into the corrupted forms of his own +generation. The other is a short vocabulary of the Latin and +vernacular names of plants, a species of class-vocabulary of which +there exist several of rather early date. + +But when we reach the end of the fourteenth century, English is once +more in the ascendant. Robert of Gloucester, Robert Mannyng of Brunne, +Dan Michel of Canterbury, and Richard Rolle of Hampole, William +Langland and John Wyclif, John Gower and Geoffrey Chaucer, and many +other authors of less known or entirely unknown name, have written in +the tongue of the people; English has been sanctioned for use in the +courts of law; and, as John of Trevisa tells us, has, since the +'furste moreyn' or Great Pestilence of 1349 (which Mrs. Markham has +taught nineteenth-century historians to call the 'Black Death'), been +introduced into the grammar schools in the translation of Latin +exercises, which boys formerly rendered into French. And under these +new conditions lexicographical activity at once bursts forth with +vigour. Six important vocabularies of the fifteenth century are +printed by Wright-Wülcker, most of them arranged, like the Old English +one of Ælfric, under subject-headings; but one large one, extending to +2,500 words, entirely alphabetical. About the middle of the century, +also, was compiled the famous _Medulla Grammatices_[5], designated, +with some propriety, 'the first Latin-English Dictionary,' the +popularity of which is shown by the many manuscript copies that still +survive; while it formed the basis of the _Ortus (i.e. Hortus) +Vocabulorum_ or first printed Latin-English Dictionary, which issued +from the press of Wynkyn de Worde in 1500, and in many subsequent +editions down to 1533, as well as in an edition by Pynson in 1509. + +But all the glossaries and vocabularies as yet mentioned were +Latin-English; their primary object was not English, but the +elucidation of Latin. A momentous advance was made about 1440, when +Brother Galfridus Grammaticus--Geoffrey the Grammarian--a Dominican +friar of Lynn Episcopi in Norfolk, produced the English-Latin +vocabulary, to which he gave the name of _Promptuarium_ or +_Promptorium Parvulorum_, the Children's Store-room or Repository. + +The _Promptorium_, the name of which has now become a household word +to students of the history of English, is a vocabulary containing some +10,000 words--substantives, adjectives, and verbs--with their Latin +equivalents, which, as edited by Mr. Albert Way for the Camden Society +in 1865, makes a goodly volume. Many manuscript copies of it were made +and circulated, of which six or seven are known to be still in +existence, and after the introduction of printing it passed through +many editions in the presses of Pynson, Wynkyn de Worde, and Julian +Notary. + +Later in the same century, the year 1483 saw the compilation of a +similar, but quite independent work, which its author named the +_Catholicon Anglicum_, that is, the English Catholicon or Universal +treatise, after the name of the celebrated Latin dictionary of the +Middle Ages, the _Catholicon_ or _Summa_ of Johannes de Balbis, or +John of Genoa, made in 1286. The English _Catholicon_ was in itself a +work almost equally valuable with the _Promptorium_; but it appears +never to have attained to the currency of the _Promptorium_, which +appeared as a printed book in 1499, while the _Catholicon_ remained in +two MSS. till printed for the Early English Text Society in 1881. + +The Renascence of Ancient Learning had now reached England, and during +the sixteenth century there were compiled and published many important +Latin-English and English-Latin vocabularies and dictionaries. Among +these special mention must be made of the Dictionary of Sir Thomas +Elyot, Knight, the first work, so far as I know, which took to itself +in English what was destined to be the famous name of DICTIONARY, in +mediaeval Latin, _Dictionarius liber_, or _Dictionarium_, literally a +repertory of _dictiones_, a word originally meaning 'sayings,' but +already by the later Latin grammarians used in the sense of _verba_ or +_vocabula_ 'words.' The early vocabularies and dictionaries had many +names, often quaint and striking; thus one of _c_1420 is entitled the +_Nominale_, or Name-book; mention has already been made of the +_Medulla Grammatices_, or Marrow of Grammar, the _Ortus Vocabulorum_, +or Garden of Words, the _Promptorium Parvulorum_, and the _Catholicon +Anglicum_; later we find the _Manipulus Vocabulorum_, or Handful of +Vocables, the _Alvearie_ or Beehive, the _Abecedarium_, the +_Bibliotheca_, or Library, the _Thesaurus_, or Treasury of Words--what +Old English times would have called the _Word-hord_, the _World of +Words_, the _Table Alphabetical_, the _English Expositor_, the _Ductor +in Linguas_, or Guide to the Tongues, the _Glossographia_, the _New +World of Words_, the _Etymologicum_, the _Gazophylacium_; and it would +have been impossible to predict in the year 1538, when Sir Thomas +Elyot published his 'Dictionary,' that this name would supplant all +the others, and even take the place of the older and better-descended +word _Vocabulary_; much less that _Dictionary_ should become so much a +name to conjure with, as to be applied to works which are not +word-books at all, but reference-books on all manner of subjects, as +Chronology, Geography, Music, Commerce, Manufactures, Chemistry, or +National Biography, arranged in Alphabetical or 'Dictionary order.' +The very phrase, 'Dictionary order,' would in the first half of the +sixteenth century have been unmeaning, for all dictionaries were not +yet alphabetical. There is indeed no other connexion between a +dictionary and alphabetical order, than that of a balance of +convenience. Experience has shown that though an alphabetical order +makes the matter of a dictionary very disjointed, scattering the +terminology of a particular art, science, or subject, all over the +book, and even when related words come together, often putting the +unimportant derivative in front of the important primitive word, it is +yet that by which a word or heading can be found, with least trouble +and exercise of thought. But this experience has been only gradually +acquired; even now the native dictionaries of some Oriental languages +are often not in alphabetical order; in such a language as Chinese, +indeed, there is no alphabetical order in which to place the words, +and they follow each other in the dictionary in a purely arbitrary and +conventional fashion. In English, as we have seen, many of the +vocabularies from the eleventh to the fifteenth century, were arranged +under class-headings according to subject; and, although Sir Thomas +Elyot's Dictionary was actually in alphabetical order, that of J. +Withals, published in 1554, under the title 'A short dictionarie for +young beginners,' and with the colophon 'Thus endeth this Dictionary +very useful for Children, compiled by J. Withals,' reverts to the +older arrangement of subject-classes, as Names of things in the Æther +or skie, the xii Signes, the vii Planets, Tymes, Seasons, Other times +in the yere, the daies of the weeke, the Ayre, the viii windes, the +iiii partes of the worlde, Byrdes, Bees, Flies, and other, the Water, +the Sea, Fishes, a Shippe with other Water vessels, the earth, +Mettales, Serpents, woorms and creepinge beastes, Foure-footed +beastes, &c.[6] + +It is unnecessary in this lecture to recount even the names of the +Latin-English and English-Latin dictionaries of the sixteenth century. +It need only be mentioned that there were six successive and +successively enlarged editions of Sir Thomas Elyot; that the last +three of these were edited by Thomas Cooper, 'Schole-Maister of +Maudlens in Oxford' (the son of an Oxford tradesman, and educated as a +chorister in Magdalen College School, who rose to be Dean of Christ +Church and Vice-Chancellor of the University, and to hold successively +the episcopal sees of Lincoln and Winchester), and that Cooper, in +1565, published his great _Thesaurus Linguæ Romanæ et Britannicæ_, +'opera et industria Thomæ Cooperi Magdalenensis,' founded upon the +great French work of Robert Stephens (Estienne), the learned French +scholar and printer. Of this work Martin Marprelate says in his +_Epistle_ (Arber, p. 42), 'His Lordship of Winchester is a great +Clarke, for he hath translated his Dictionarie, called Cooper's +Dictionarie, verbatim out of Robert Stephanus his _Thesaurus_, and +ill-favoured too, they say!' This was, however, the criticism of an +adversary; Cooper had added to Stephens's work many accessions from +his editions of Sir Thomas Elyot, and other sources; his _Thesaurus_ +was the basis of later Latin-English dictionaries, and traces of it +may still be discovered in the Latin-English dictionaries of to-day. + +Of printed English-Latin works, after the _Promptorium_, one of the +earliest was the _Vulgaria_ of William Herman, Headmaster and Provost +of Eton, printed by Pynson in 1519. This is a _Dictionarium_ or _liber +dictionarius_ in the older sense, for it consists of short _dictiones_ +or sayings, maxims, and remarks, arranged under subject-headings, such +as _De Pietate_, _De Impietate_, _De corporis dotibus_, _De +Valetudinis cura_, _De Hortensibus_, _De Bellicis_, and finally a +heading _Promiscua_. It may therefore be conceived that it is not easy +to find any particular _dictio_. Horman was originally a Cambridge +man; but, according to Wood, he was elected a Fellow of New College, +Oxford, in 1477, the very year in which Caxton printed his first book +in England, and in this connexion it is interesting to find among the +illustrative sentences in the _Vulgaria_, this reference to the new +art (sign. Oij): 'The prynters haue founde a crafte to make bokes by +brasen letters sette in ordre by a frame,' which is thus latinized: +'Chalcographi artem excogitauerunt imprimendi libros qua literæ formis +æreis excudunt.' Of later English-Latin dictionaries two deserve +passing mention: the _Abecedarium_ of Richard Huloet or Howlet, a +native of Wisbech, which appeared in the reign of Edward VI, in 1552, +and the Alvearie of John Baret, Fellow of Trinity College, Cambridge, +published under Elizabeth in 1573. The Abecedarium, although it gives +the Latin equivalents, may be looked upon to some extent as an English +dictionary, for many of the words have an English explanation, as well +as a Latin rendering; thus _Almesse_, or gift of dryncke, meate, or +money, distributed to the poore, _sporta_, _sportula_; _Amyable_, +pleasante, or hauing a good grace, _amabilis_; _Anabaptistes_, a sorte +of heretyques of late tyme in Germanye about the yere of our Lorde God +1524.... _Anabaptistæ_. + +Baret's _Alvearie_ of 1573 has been justly styled 'one of the most +quaint and charming of all the early Dictionaries.' In his 'Prefatory +Address to the Reader' the author tells, in fine Elizabethan prose, +both how his book came into existence, and why he gave it its curious +name:-- + + 'About eighteene yeeres agone, hauing pupils at Cambridge + studious of the Latine tongue, I vsed them often to write + Epistles and Theames together, and dailie to translate + some peece of English into Latine, for the more speedie + attaining of the same. And after we had a little begun, + perceiuing what great trouble it was to come running to + me for euerie worde they missed, knowing then of no other + Dictionarie to helpe vs, but Sir Thomas Eliots Librarie, + which was come out a little before; I appointed them + certaine leaues of the same booke euerie daie to write + the english before the Latin, & likewise to gather a + number of fine phrases out of Cicero, Terence, Cæsar, + Liuie, &c. & to set them vnder seuerall titles, for the + more readie finding them againe at their neede. Thus, + within a yeere or two, they had gathered together a great + volume, which (for the apt similitude betweene the good + Scholers and diligent Bees in gathering their waxe and + honie into their Hiue) I called then their _Aluearie_, + both for a memoriall by whom it was made, and also by + this name to incourage other to the like diligence, for + that they should not see their worthie praise for the + same, vnworthilie drowned in obliuion. Not long after, + diuers of our friends borrowing this our worke which we + had thus contriued & wrought onelie for our owne priuate + vse, often and many waies moued me to put it in print for + the common profet of others, and the publike propagation + of the Latine tongue.' + +But when Baret at length resolved to comply with this suggestion, +there were many difficulties to be overcome, the expense of the work +being not the least:-- + + 'And surelie, had not the right honourable Sir Thomas + Smith knight, principall Secretarie to the Queenes + Maiestie, that noble Theseus of learning, and comfortable + Patrone to all Students, and the right Worshipfull M. + Nowell, Deane of Pawles, manie waies encouraged me in + this wearie worke (the charges were so great, and the + losse of my time so much grieued me) I had neuer bene + able alone to haue wrestled against so manie troubles, + but long ere this had cleane broken off our worke begun, + and cast it by for euer.' + +Between the dates of the _Abecedarium_ and the _Alvearie_, Peter +Levins, Fellow of Magdalen College, Oxford, published, in 1570, the +first essay at an English Riming Dictionary, the _Manipulus +Vocabulorum_, or Handful of Vocables, an original copy of which is in +the Bodleian Library; it was reprinted for the Early English Text +Society in 1867 by Mr. H.B. Wheatley. The English words are arranged +in order of their terminations, and each is furnished with a Latin +equivalent. + +Of all the works which we have yet considered, Latin was an essential +element: whether the object was, as in the glossaries and vocabularies +before the fifteenth century, to explain the Latin words themselves, +or as in the _Promptorium_ and _Catholicon_, the _Abecedarium_ and the +_Alvearie_, and other works of the sixteenth century, to render +English words into Latin. But a new stage of development was marked by +the appearance of dictionaries of English with another modern +language. In 1521, the 'Introductory to write and to pronounce +Frenche,' by Alexander Barclay, author of the 'Ship of Fooles,' was +issued from the press of Robert Coplande; and about 1527 Giles du Guez +or du Wes (anglicized Dewes), French teacher to the Lady Mary, +afterwards Queen Mary, published his 'Introductorie for to lerne to +rede, to pronounce and to speke French trewly.' In addition to +grammatical rules and dialogues, it contains a select vocabulary +English and French. In 1514, Mary Tudor, younger sister of Henry VIII, +became the unwilling bride of Louis XII of France. To initiate the +princess in her husband's tongue, John Palsgrave, a native of London +and graduate of Cambridge, who had subsequently studied in Paris, was +chosen as her tutor, and accompanied her to France. For her use +Palsgrave prepared his celebrated _Esclarcissement de la Langue +Françoyse_, which he subsequently revised and published in 1530, after +his return to England, where he was incorporated M.A. at Oxford. The +_Esclarcissement_ is a famous book, at once grammar and vocabulary, +and may be considered as the earliest dictionary of a modern language, +in French as well as in English. It was reprinted in 1852 at the +expense of the French Government in the series of publications +entitled 'Collection de documents inédits sur l'histoire de France, +publiés par les soins du Ministre de l'Instruction Publique, Deuxième +Série--Histoire des Lettres et des Sciences.' It is a trite saying +that 'they do these things better in France'; but it is, nevertheless, +sometimes true. Amid all the changes of government which France has +seen in modern times, it has never been forgotten that the history of +the French language, and of French letters and French science, is part +of the history of France; the British government has not even now +attained to the standpoint of recognizing this: among the historical +documents published under the direction of the authorities of the +Record Office, there is no series illustrating the history of the +language, the literature, or the science of England. + +Next to French, the continental languages most important to Englishmen +in the sixteenth century, were Italian and Spanish, of both of which, +accordingly, dictionaries were published before the end of the +century[7]. In 1599 Richard Percevall, Gent., published his dictionary +in Spanish and English; and in the same year 'resolute John Florio' +(who in his youth resided in Worcester Place, Oxford, and was +matriculated at Magdalen College in 1581) brought out his +Italian-English Dictionary, the _World of Words_, which he +re-published in a much enlarged form in 1611, with dedication to the +Queen of James I, as _Queen Anna's New World of Words_. This year, +also, Randall Cotgrave published his famous French-English Dictionary, +which afterwards passed through so many editions. In the absence as +yet of any merely English dictionary, the racy English vocabulary of +Florio and Cotgrave is of exceeding value, and has been successfully +employed in illustrating the contemporary language of Shakspere, to +whom Florio, patronized as he was by the Earls of Southampton and +Pembroke, was probably personally known. Thus, the same year which saw +England provided with the version of the Bible which was to be so +intimately identified with the language of the next three centuries, +saw her also furnished with adequate dictionaries of French, Italian, +and Spanish; and, in 1617, a still more ambitious work was +accomplished by John Minsheu in the production of a polyglot +dictionary of English with ten other languages, British or Welsh, Low +Dutch, High Dutch, French, Italian, Spanish, Portuguese, Latin, Greek, +and Hebrew, which he entitled '[Greek: Haegemon eis tas glossas], id +est _Ductor in Linguas_, the Guide into Tongues.' + +But though in these works there is necessarily contained much of the +material of an English dictionary, so that we can from them recover +most of the current vocabulary, no one appears before the end of the +sixteenth century to have felt that Englishmen could want a dictionary +to help them to the knowledge and correct use of their own language. +That language was either an in-born faculty, or it was inhaled with +their native air, or imbibed with their mothers' milk; how could they +need a book to teach them to speak their mother-tongue? To the +scholars of the Renascence the notion would have seemed absurd--as +absurd as it has seemed to some of their descendants in the nineteenth +century, that an English grammar-school or an English university +should trouble itself about such aboriginal products of the English +skull, as English language and literature. But by the end of the +sixteenth century, as by the end of the nineteenth, there was a moving +of the waters: the Renascence of ancient learning had itself brought +into English use thousands of learned words, from Latin, Greek, +Hebrew, Arabic, and other languages, 'ink-horn terms,' as they were +called by Bale and by Puttenham, unknown to, and not to be imbibed +from, mother or grandmother. A work exhibiting the spelling, and +explaining the meaning, of these new-fangle 'hard words' was the felt +want of the day; and the first attempt to supply it marks, on the +whole, the most important point in the evolution of the modern English +Dictionary. + +In 1604, Robert Cawdrey, who had been a schoolmaster at Okeham, and +afterwards at Coventry, published a modest octavo of 120 pages, 5-1/2 +inches by 3-1/2, calling itself _The Table Alphabeticall of Hard +Words_, in which he set forth the proper spelling and meaning of some +3,000 of these learned terms; his work reached a third edition in +1612[8]. In 1616, Dr. John Bullokar, then resident in Chichester, +followed with a work of the same kind and size, named by him _An +English Expositor_, of which numerous editions came out, one as late +as 1684. And in 1623 appeared the work which first assumed the title +of 'The English Dictionarie,' by H.C., Gent. H.C., we learn from the +dedication, was Henry Cockeram, to whom John Ford the dramatist +addressed the following congratulatory lines:-- + + To my industrious friend, the Author of this English Dictionarie, + MR. HENRY COCKRAM OF EXETER. + + Borne in the West? liue there? so far from Court? + From Oxford, Cambridge, London? yet report + (Now in these daies of Eloquence) such change + Of words? vnknown? vntaught? tis new and strange. + Let Gallants therefore skip no more from hence + To Italic, France, Spaine, and with expence + Waste time and faire estates, to learne new fashions + Of complementall phrases, soft temptations + To glorious beggary: Here let them hand + This Booke; here studie, reade, and vnderstand: + Then shall they find varietie at Home, + As curious as at Paris, or at Rome. + For my part I confesse, hadst not thou writ, + I had not beene acquainted with more wit + Than our old English taught; but now I can + Be proud to know I have a Countryman + Hath strugled for a fame, and what is more, + Gain'd it by paths of Art, vntrod before. + The benefit is generall; the crowne + Of praise particular, and thats _thine owne_. + What should I say? thine owne deserts inspire thee, + Twere base to enuie, I must then admire thee. + + A friend and louer of thy paines, + IOHN FORD. + +And a deeply interesting little book is this diminutive ancestor of +the modern English Dictionary, to describe which adequately would take +far more time than the limits of this lecture afford. It is divided +into three parts: Part I contains the hard words with their +explanation in ordinary language; and instructive it is to see what +words were then considered hard and unknown. Many of them certainly +would be so still: as, for example, _abgregate_, 'to lead out of the +flock'; _acersecomick_, 'one whose hair was never cut'; +_adcorporated_, 'married'; _adecastick_, 'one that will do just +howsoever'; _bubulcitate_, 'to cry like a cow-boy'; _collocuplicate_, +'to enrich'--concerning which we wonder who used them, or where +Cockeram found them; but we are surprised to find among these hard +words _abandon_, _abhorre_, _abrupt_, _absurd_, _action_, _activitie_, +and _actresse_, explained as 'a woman doer,' for the stage actress had +not yet appeared. _Blunder_, 'to bestir oneself,' and _Garble_, 'to +clense things from dust,' remind us that the meanings of words are +subject to change. The Second Part contains the ordinary words +'explained' by their hard equivalents, and is intended to teach a +learned style. The plain man or gentlewoman may write a letter in his +or her natural language, and then by turning up the simple words in +the dictionary alter them into their learned equivalents. Thus +'abound' may be altered into _exuperate_, 'too great plenty' into +_uberty_, 'he and I are of one age' into _we are coetaneous_, +'youthful babbling' into _juvenile inaniloquence_--a useful expression +to hurl at an opponent in the Oxford Union. + +The last part is the most entertaining of all: it is headed 'The Third +Part, treating of Gods and Goddesses, Men and Women, Boyes and Maides, +Giants and Diuels, Birds and Beasts, Monsters and Serpents, Wells and +Riuers, Herbes, Stones, Trees, Dogges, Fishes, and the like'; it is a +key to the allusions to classical, historical, mythological, and other +marvellous persons, animals, and things, to be met with in polite +literature. A good example of its contents is the well-known article +on the _Crocodile_:-- + + '_Crocodile_, a beast hatched of an egge, yet some of them + grow to a great bignesse, as 10. 20. or 30. foot in length: + it hath cruell teeth and scaly back, with very sharpe clawes + on his feete: if it see a man afraid of him, it will eagerly + pursue him, but on the contrary, if he be assaulted he wil + shun him. Hauing eaten the body of a man, it will weepe ouer + the head, but in fine eate the head also: thence came the + Prouerb, he shed Crocodile teares, viz., fayned teares.' + +Appreciation of Cockeram's 'Dictionarie' was marked by the numerous +editions through which it passed down as late as 1659. Meanwhile +Thomas Blount, Barrister of the Inner Temple, and correspondent of +Anthony à Wood, was devoting the leisure hours of twenty years to his +'_Glossographia_: or a Dictionary interpreting all such hard words, +whether Hebrew, Greek, Latin,' etc., 'as are now used in our refined +English Tongue,' of which the first edition saw the light in 1656. + +I suppose it is a truism, that the higher position now taken by +English studies, is intimately interwoven with the advances which have +been made during the last quarter of a century in the higher education +of women, and that but for the movement to let women share in the +advantages of a university education, it is doubtful whether the +nineteenth century would have witnessed the establishment of a School +of English Language and Literature at Oxford. In connexion with this +it is a noteworthy fact, that the preparation of these early +seventeenth century English dictionaries was also largely due to a +consideration of the educational wants of women. The 'Table +Alphabeticall' of Robert Cawdrey, which was dedicated to five 'right +honourable, Worshipfull, vertuous, and godlie Ladies[9],' the sisters +of his former pupil, Sir James Harrington, Knight, bears on its +title-page that it is 'gathered for the benefit and help of Ladies, +Gentlewomen, or any other vnskilfull persons.' Bullokar's _Expositor_ +was dedicated 'to the Right Honorable and Vertvovs his Singvlar Good +Ladie, the Ladie Jane Viscountesse Mountague,' under whose patronage +he hoped to see the work 'perhaps gracefully admitted among greatest +Ladies and studious Gentlewomen, to whose reading (I am made belieue) +it will not prooue altogether vngratefull.' In similar words, the +title-page of Cockeram's Dictionary proclaims its purpose of 'Enabling +as well Ladies and Gentlewomen ... as also Strangers of any Nation to +the vnderstanding of the more difficult Authors already printed in our +Language, and the more speedy attaining of an elegant perfection of +the English tongue, both in reading, speaking, and writing.' And +Thomas Blount, setting forth the purpose of his _Glossographia_, says, +in words of which one seems to have heard an echo in reference to an +English School in this University, 'It is chiefly intended for the +more-knowing Women, and less-knowing Men; or indeed for all such of +the unlearned, who can but finde in an Alphabet the word they +understand not.' + +It is noticeable that all these references to the needs of women +disappear from the later editions, and are wanting in later +dictionaries after 1660; whether this was owing to the fact that the +less-knowing women had now come upsides with the more-knowing men; or +that with the Restoration, female education went out of fashion, and +women sank back again into elegant illiteracy, I leave to the +historian to discover; I only, as a lexicographer, record the fact +that from the Restoration the dictionaries are silent about the +education of women, till we pass the Revolution settlement and reach +the Age of Queen Anne, when J.K. in 1702 tells us that his dictionary +is 'chiefly designed for the benefit of young Scholars, Tradesmen, +Artificers, and the female sex, who would learn to spell truely.' + +Blount's _Glossographia_ went through many editions down to 1707; but +two years after its appearance, Edward Phillips, the son of Milton's +sister Anne, published his _New World of Words_, which Blount with +some reason considered to be largely plagiarized from his book. He +held his peace, however, until Phillips brought out a Law-Dictionary +or _Nomothetes_, also largely copied from his own _Nomo-lexicon_, when +he could refrain himself no longer, and burst upon the world with his +indignant pamphlet, 'A World of Errors discovered in the New World of +Words, and in Nomothetes or the Interpreter,' in which he exhibits the +proofs of Phillips's cribbing, and makes wild sport of the cases in +which his own errors and misprints had either been copied or muddled +by his plagiarist. The latter did not vouchsafe a reply; he knew a +better plan; he quietly corrected in his next edition the mistakes +which Blount had so conveniently pointed out, and his 'New World of +Words,' furnished with an engraved frontispiece, containing views of +Oxford and Cambridge, and portraits of some Oxford and Cambridge +scholars, lived on in successive editions as long as Blount's. + +Time and space forbid me even to recount the later dictionaries of +this class and period; we need only mention that of Elisha Coles, a +chorister and subsequently matriculated student of Magdalen College +(of which his uncle, Elisha Coles, was steward under the +Commonwealth), a meritorious work which passed through numerous +editions down to 1732; and that of Edward Cocker, the celebrated +arithmetician and writing-master of St. George's, Southwark, by whom +people still sometimes asseverate 'according to Cocker.' This was +published after his death, 'from the author's correct copy,' by John +Hawkins, in 1704, with a portrait of the redoubtable Cocker himself in +flowing wig and gown, and the following lines:-- + + 'COCKER, who in fair writing did excell, + And in Arithmetic perform'd as well, + This necessary work took next in hand, + That Englishmen might English understand.' + +The last edition of Phillips' _New World of Words_ was edited after +his death, with numerous additions, by John Kersey, son of John Kersey +the mathematician. Two years later Kersey threw the materials into +another form and published it in an octavo, as Kersey's '_Dictionarium +Anglo-Britannicum_, or a General English Dictionary,' of which three +editions appeared before 1721. In this work there are included a +considerable number of obsolete words, chiefly from Spenser and his +contemporaries, marked O., and in some cases erroneously explained. +Professor Skeat has pointed out that this was the source of +Chatterton's Elizabethan vocabulary, and that he took the obsolete +words, which he attributed to Rowley, erroneous explanations and all, +direct from Kersey's Dictionary. + +More than 100 years had now elapsed since Robert Cawdrey prepared his +'Table Alphabeticall,' and nearly a century since the work of +Cockeram; and all the dictionaries which had meanwhile appeared, +although their size had steadily increased, were, in purpose and fact, +only what these works had been--Vocabularies of 'Hard Words,' not of +words in general. The notion that an English Dictionary ought to +contain _all_ English words had apparently as yet occurred to no one; +at least no one had proposed to carry the idea into practice. But this +further step in the evolution of the modern dictionary was now about +to be made, and the man who made it was one of the most deserving in +the annals of English lexicography. We now, looking back on the +eighteenth century, associate it chiefly with the work of Dr. Johnson; +but down beyond the middle of that century, and to the man in the +street much later, by far the best-known name in connexion with +dictionaries was that of NATHANAEL BAILEY. An advertisement appended +to the first edition of his Dictionary runs thus: 'Youth Boarded, and +taught the Hebrew, Greek, and Latin languages, in a Method more Easy +and Expedient than is common; also, other School-learning, by the +_Author_ of this _Dictionary_, to be heard of at Mr. Batley's, +Bookseller, at the Sign of the Dove in Paternoster Row.' Bailey was +the author or editor of several scholarly works; but, for us, his +great work was his _Universal Etymological English Dictionary_, +published in 1721. In this he aimed at including all English words; +yet not for the mere boast of 'completeness,' but for a practical +purpose. The dictionary was not merely explanatory, it was also +etymological; and though Englishmen might not need to be told the +meaning of _man_ or _woman_, _dog_ or _cat_[10], they might want a +hint as to their derivation. Bailey had hit the nail aright: +successive editions were called for almost every two years during the +century; when the author died, in 1742, the tenth edition was in the +press. In that of 1731, Bailey first marked the stress-accent, a step +in the direction of indicating pronunciation. In 1730, moreover, he +brought out with the aid of some specialists, his folio dictionary, +the greatest lexicographical work yet undertaken in English, into +which he also introduced diagrams and proverbs. This is an interesting +book historically, for, according to Sir John Hawkins, it formed the +working basis of Dr. Johnson[11]. + +Bailey had many imitators and rivals, nearly all of whom aimed, like +him, at including all words; of these I need only name Dyche and +Pardon 1735, B.N. Defoe 1735, and Benjamin Martin 1749. + +During the second quarter of the century, the feeling arose among +literary men, as well as among the booksellers, that the time had come +for the preparation of a 'Standard Dictionary' of the English tongue. +The language had now attained a high degree of literary perfection; a +perfect prose style, always a characteristic of maturity, had been +created; a brilliant galaxy of dramatists and essayists--Dryden, Pope, +Addison, Steele, Swift, Defoe--had demonstrated that English was +capable of expressing clearly and elegantly everything that needed to +be expressed in language. The age of Queen Anne was compared to the +Ciceronian age of Latin, or the age of Aristotle and Plato in Greek. +But in both these cases, as indeed in that of every known ancient +people, the language, after reaching its acme of perfection, had begun +to decay and become debased: the golden age of Latinity had passed +into a silvern, and that into a brazen and an iron age. The fear was +that a like fate should overtake English also; to avert which calamity +the only remedy appeared to be to _fix the language_ by means of a +'Standard Dictionary,' which should register the proper sense and use +of every word and phrase, from which no polite writer henceforth would +be expected to deviate; but, even as generation after generation of +boys and men found their perfection of Latinity in the imitation of +Cicero, so all succeeding ages of Englishmen should find their ideal +of speech and writing fixed for ever in this standard dictionary. To +us of a later age, with our fuller knowledge of the history of +language, and our wider experience of its fortunes, when it has to be +applied to entirely new fields of knowledge, such as have been opened +to us since the birth of modern science, this notion seems childlike +and pathetic. But it was eminently characteristic of the eighteenth +century, an age of staid and decorous subsidence from the energetic +restlessness of the seventeenth--an age in which men eschewed +revolution and innovation, and devoted themselves assiduously to +conserve, consolidate, polish, refine, and make the best of what they +had. + +In this notion of ascertaining, purifying, refining, and fixing the +language, England was only following in the wake of some other +countries. In Italy the _Accademia della Crusca_, and in France the +_Academie française_, had been instituted for this very purpose, and +the latter had, after twenty years of preparation, and forty more +years of work, published the first edition of a dictionary in which +the French language was (fondly and vainly) supposed to be thus +ascertained, sifted, and fixed for ever. England had no Academy; but +it was thought that what had been done in France by the Forty +Immortals might perhaps be done here by some leading man of letters. +The idea had, it appears, been put before Alexander Pope, and approved +by him; he is said even to have drawn up a list of the authors whose +writings might be taken as authorities for such a dictionary; but he +died in 1744, before anything further was done. The subject seems then +to have been pressed upon the attention of SAMUEL JOHNSON; but it was +not till 1747 that the matter took definite shape, when a syndicate of +five or six London booksellers contracted with Johnson to produce the +desired standard dictionary in the space of three years for the sum of +fifteen hundred guineas. Alas for human calculations, and especially +for those of dictionary makers! The work occupied nearly thrice the +specified time, and, ere it was finished, the stipulated sum had been +considerably overdrawn. At length, in 1755, appeared the two massive +folios, each 17 inches long, 10 inches wide, and 3-1/2 inches thick, +entitled 'A | Dictionary | of the | English Language | in which | the +Words are deduced from their Originals, | and | illustrated in their +different significations | by Examples from the Best Writers. | By +Samuel Johnson.' The limits of this lecture do not permit me to say +one tithe of what might and ought to be said of this great work. For +the present purpose it must suffice to point out that the special new +feature which it contributed to the evolution of the modern dictionary +was the illustration of the use of each word by a selection of +literary quotations, and the more delicate appreciation and +discrimination of senses which this involved and rendered possible. +Only where he had no quotations did Johnson insert words from Bailey's +folio, or other source, with _Dict._ as the authority. The literary +quotations were entirely supplied by himself from his capacious +memory, or from books specially perused and marked by him for +extraction. When he first began his work in the room in Gough Square, +his whole time was devoted to thus reading and marking books, from +which six clerkly assistants copied the marked quotations. The fact +that many of the quotations were inserted from memory without +verification (a practice facilitated by Johnson's plan of merely +naming the author, without specifying the particular work quoted, or +giving any reference whereby the passage could be turned up) is +undoubtedly the reason why many of the quotations are not verbally +exact. Even so, however, they are generally adequate for the purpose +for which they are adduced, that is, they usually contain the word for +which they are quoted, and the context is more or less accurately +rendered. But in some cases it is otherwise: Johnson's memory played +him false, and he quotes a passage for a word that it does not +actually contain. As an example, under _Distilment_ he correctly +quotes from _Hamlet_, 'And in the porches of mine ears did pour the +leperous distilment.' But when he reached _Instilment_, his memory +became vague, and forgetting that he had already quoted the passage +under _Distilment_, he quoted it again as 'the leperous instilment'--a +reading which does not exist in any text of Shakspere, and was a mere +temporary hallucination of memory. There are some other curious +mistakes, which must, I suppose, have crept in either in the course of +transcription or of printing. As specimens I mention two, because they +have unfortunately perverted ordinary usage. The two words _Coco_ and +_Cocoa_--the former a Portuguese word[12], naming the _coco-nut_, the +fruit of a palm-tree; the latter a latinized form of _Cacao_, the +Aztec name of a Central American shrub, whence we have cocoa and +chocolate--were always distinguished down to Johnson's time, and were +in fact distinguished by Johnson himself in his own writings. His +account of these in the Dictionary is quoted from Miller's _Gardener's +Dictionary_ and Hill's _Materia Medica_, in which the former is spelt +_coco_ and the latter _cacao_ and _cocoa_. But in Johnson's Dictionary +the two words are by some accident run together under the heading +_cocoa_, with the disastrous result that modern vulgar usage mixes the +two up, spells the _coco-nut_, 'cocoa-' as if it were _co-co-a_, and +on the other hand pronounces _cocoa_, the cacao-bean and the beverage, +as if it were _coco_. The word _dispatch_, from It. _dispaccio_, had +been in English use for some 250 years when Johnson's Dictionary +appeared, and had been correctly spelt by everybody (that is by +everybody but the illiterate) with dis-. This was Johnson's own +spelling both before and after he published the dictionary, as may be +seen in his _Letters_ edited by Dr. G. Birkbeck Hill[13]. It was also +the spelling of all the writers whom Johnson quoted. But by some +inexplicable error, the word got into the dictionary as _despatch_, +and this spelling was even substituted in most of the quotations. I +have not found that a single writer followed this erroneous spelling +in the eighteenth century: Nelson, Wellesley, Wellington, and all our +commanders and diplomatists wrote _Dispatches_; but since about 1820, +the filtering down of the influence of Johnson's Dictionary has caused +this erroneous spelling _despatch_ to become generally known and to be +looked upon as authoritative; so that at the present time about half +our newspapers give the erroneous form, to which, more larmentably, +the Post Office, after long retaining the correct official tradition, +recently capitulated. + +But despite small blemishes[14], the dictionary was a marvellous piece +of work to accomplish in eight and a half years; and it is quite +certain that, if all the quotations had had to be verified and +furnished with exact references, a much longer time, or the employment +of much more collaboration, would have been required. With much +antecedent preparation, with much skilled co-operation, and with +strenuous effort, it took more than nine years to produce the first +three letters of the alphabet of the Oxford New English Dictionary. + +Johnson's great work raised English lexicography altogether to a +higher level. In his hands it became a department of literature. The +value of the Dictionary was recognized from the first by men of +letters; a second edition was called for the same year. But it hardly +became a popular work, or even a work of popular fame, before the +present century. For forty years after its first publication editions +of Bailey followed each other as rapidly as ever; numerous new +dictionaries of the size and character of Bailey, often largely +indebted to Johnson's definitions, appeared. But the only new feature +introduced into lexicography between 1755 and the end of the century +was the indication of the Orthoepy or Pronunciation. From Bailey +onward, and by Johnson himself, the place of the stress-accent had +been marked, but no attempt had been made to show how such a group of +letters, for example, as _colonel_, or _enough_, or _phthisical_, was +actually pronounced; or, to use modern phraseology, to tell what the +_living word_ itself was, as distinguished from its written symbol. +This feature, so obviously important in a language of which the +spelling had ceased to be phonetic, was added by Dr. William Kenrick +in his 'New Dictionary' of 1773, a little later in 1775 by William +Perry, in 1780 by Thomas Sheridan, and especially in 1791 by John +Walker, whose authority long remained as supreme in the domain of +pronunciation, as that of Dr. Johnson in definition and illustration; +so that popular dictionaries of the first half of the present century +commonly claimed to be abridgements of 'Johnson's Dictionary, with, +the Pronunciation on the basis of Walker.' + +From the first quarter of the nineteenth century, the lexicographical +supremacy of Johnson's Dictionary was undisputed, and eminent students +of the language busied themselves in trying, not to supersede it, but +to supplement and perfect it. Numerous supplements, containing +additional words, senses, and quotations, were published; in 1818 a +new edition, embracing many such accessions, was prepared by the +learned Archdeacon Todd, and 'Todd's Johnson' continues to be an +esteemed work to our own day. But only two independent contributions +to the development of lexicography were made in the earlier half of +the nineteenth century. These were the American work of Noah Webster, +and the English work of Dr. Charles Richardson. + +Webster was a great man, a born definer of words; he was fired with +the idea that America ought to have a dictionary of its own form of +English, independent of British usage, and he produced a work of great +originality and value. Unfortunately, like many other clever men, he +had the notion that derivations can be elaborated from one's own +consciousness as well as definitions, and he included in his work +so-called 'etymologies' of this sort. But Etymology is simply +Word-history, and Word-history, like all other history, is a record of +the _facts_ which _did_ happen, not a fabric of conjectures as to what +may have happened. In the later editions of Webster, these +'derivations' have been cleared out _en masse_, and the etymology +placed in the hands of men abreast of the science of the time; and the +last edition of Webster, the _International_, is perhaps the best of +one-volume dictionaries. + +Richardson started on a new track altogether. Observing how much light +was shed on the meaning of words by Johnson's quotations, he was +impressed with the notion that, in a dictionary, definitions are +unnecessary, that quotations alone are sufficient; and he proceeded to +carry this into effect by making a dictionary without definitions or +explanations of meaning, or at least with the merest rudiments of +them, but illustrating each group of words by a large series of +quotations. In the collection of these he displayed immense research. +Going far beyond the limits of Dr. Johnson, he quoted from authors +back to the year 1300, and probably for the first time made Chaucer +and Gower and Piers Ploughman living names to many readers. And his +special notion was quite correct _in theory_. Quotations _will_ tell +the full meaning of a word, _if one has enough of them_; but it takes +a great many to be enough, and it takes a reader a long time to read +and weigh all the quotations, and to deduce from them the meanings +which might be put before him in a line or two. As a fact, while +Richardson's notion was correct in theory, mundane conditions of space +and time rendered it humanly impracticable. Nevertheless, the mass of +quotations, most of them with exact references, collected by him, and +printed under the word-groups which they illustrated, was a service +never to be undervalued or forgotten, and his work, 'A New Dictionary +of the English Language ... Illustrated by Quotations from the best +Authors' by Charles Richardson, LL.D., 1836-7, still continues to be a +valuable repertory of illustrations. + +Such was the position of English lexicography in the middle of the +nineteenth century, when the late Dr. Trench, then Dean of +Westminster, who had already written several esteemed works on the +English language and the history of words, read two papers before the +Philological Society in London 'On some Deficiencies in existing +English Dictionaries,' in which, while speaking with much appreciation +of the labours of Dr. Johnson and his successors, he declared that +these labours yet fell far short of giving us the ideal English +Dictionary. Especially, he pointed out that for the _history_ of words +and families of words, and for the changes of form and sense which +words had historically passed through, they gave hardly any help +whatever. No one could find out from all the dictionaries extant how +long any particular word had been in the language, which of the many +senses in which many words were used was the original, or how or when +these many senses had been developed; nor, in the case of words +described as _obsolete_, were we told _when_ they became obsolete or +by whom they were last used. He pointed out also that the obsolete and +the rarer words of the language had never been completely collected; +that thousands of words current in the literature of the past three +centuries had escaped the diligence of Johnson and all his +supplementers; that, indeed, the collection of the requisite material +for a complete dictionary could not be compassed by any one man, +however long-lived and however diligent, but must be the work of many +collaborators who would undertake systematically to read and to +extract English literature. He called upon the Philological Society, +therefore, as the only body in England then interesting itself in the +language, to undertake the collection of materials to complete the +work already done by Bailey, Johnson, Todd, Webster, Richardson, and +others, and to prepare a supplement to all the dictionaries, which +should register all omitted words and senses, and supply all the +historical information in which these works were lacking, and, above +all, should give quotations illustrating the first and last +appearance, and every notable point in the life-history of every word. + +From this impulse arose the movement which, widened and directed by +much practical experience, has culminated in the preparation of the +Oxford English Dictionary, 'A new English Dictionary on Historical +Principles, founded mainly on the materials collected by the +Philological Society.' This dictionary superadds to all the features +that have been successively evolved by the long chain of workers, the +historical information which Dr. Trench desiderated. It seeks not +merely to record every word that has been used in the language for the +last 800 years, with its written form and signification, and the +pronunciation of the current words, but to furnish a biography of each +word, giving as nearly as possible the date of its birth or first +known appearance, and, in the case of an obsolete word or sense, of +its last appearance, the source from which it was actually derived, +the form and sense with which it entered the language or is first +found in it, and the successive changes of form and developments of +sense which it has since undergone. All these particulars are derived +from historical research; they are an induction of facts gathered by +the widest investigation of the written monuments of the language. For +the purposes of this historical illustration more than five millions +of extracts have been made, by two thousand volunteer Readers, from +innumerable books, representing the English literature of all ages, +and from numerous documentary records. From these, and the further +researches for which they provide a starting-point, the history of +each word is deduced and exhibited. + +Since the Philological Society's scheme was propounded, several large +dictionaries have been compiled, adopting one or more of Archbishop +Trench's suggestions, and thus showing some of the minor features of +this dictionary. They have collected some of the rare and obsolete +words and senses of the past three centuries; they have attained to +greater fullness and exactness in exhibiting the current uses of +words, and especially of the many modern words which the progress of +physical science has called into being. But they leave the _history_ +of the words themselves where it was when Dr. Trench pointed out the +deficiencies of existing dictionaries. And their literary +illustrations of the older words are, in too many cases, those of Dr. +Johnson, copied from dictionary to dictionary without examination or +verification, and, what is more important, without acknowledgement, so +that the reader has no warning that a given quotation is merely +second-or third-hand, and, therefore, to be accepted with +qualification[15]. The quotations in the New English Dictionary, on +the other hand, have been supplied afresh by its army of volunteer +Readers; or, when for any reason one is adopted from a preceding +dictionary without verification, the fact is stated, both as an +acknowledgement of others' work, and as a warning to the reader that +it is given on intermediate authority. + +Original work, patient induction of facts, minute verification of +evidence, are slow processes, and a work so characterized cannot be +put together with scissors and paste, or run off with the speed of the +copyist. All the great dictionaries of the modern languages have taken +a long time to make; but the speed with which the New English +Dictionary has now advanced nearly to its half-way point can +advantageously claim comparison with the progress of any other great +dictionary, even when this falls far behind in historical and +inductive character.[16] Be the speed what it may, however, there is +the consideration that the work thus done is done once for all; the +structure now reared will have to be added to, continued, and extended +with time, but it will remain, it is believed, the great body of fact +on which all future work will be built. It is never possible to +forecast the needs and notions of those who shall come after us; but +with our present knowledge it is not easy to conceive what new feature +can now be added to English Lexicography. At any rate, it can be +maintained that in the Oxford Dictionary, permeated as it is through +and through with the scientific method of the century, Lexicography +has for the present reached its supreme development. + +In the course of this lecture, it has been needful to give so many +details as to individual works, that my audience may at times have +failed 'to see the wood for the trees,' and may have lost the clue of +the lexicographical evolution. Let me then in conclusion recapitulate +the stages which have been already indicated. These are: the glossing +of difficult words in Latin manuscripts by easier Latin, and at length +by English words; the collection of the English glosses into +Glossaries, and the elaboration of Latin-English Vocabularies; the +later formation of English-Latin Vocabularies; the production of +Dictionaries of English and another modern language; the compilation +of Glossaries and Dictionaries of 'hard' English words; the extension +of these by Bailey, for etymological purposes, to include words in +general; the idea of a Standard Dictionary, and its realization by Dr. +Johnson with illustrative quotations; the notion that a Dictionary +should also show the pronunciation of the living word; the extension +of the function of quotations by Richardson; the idea that the +Dictionary should be a biography of every word, and should set forth +every fact connected with its origin, history, and use, on a strictly +historical method. These stages coincide necessarily with stages of +our national and literary history; the first two were already reached +before the Norman Conquest; the third followed upon the recognition of +English as the official language of the nation, and its employment by +illustrious Middle English writers. The Dictionaries of the modern +languages were necessitated first by the fact that French had at +length ceased to be the living tongue of any class of Englishmen, and +secondly by the other fact that the rise of the modern languages and +increasing intercourse with the Continent made Latin no longer +sufficient as a common medium of international communication. The +consequences of the Renascence and of the New Learning of the +sixteenth century appear in the need for the Dictionaries of Hard +Words at the beginning of the seventeenth; the literary polish of the +age of Anne begat the yearning for a standard dictionary, and inspired +the work of Johnson; the scientific and historical spirit of the +nineteenth century has at once called for and rendered possible the +Oxford English Dictionary. Thus the evolution of English Lexicography +has followed with no faltering steps the evolution of English History +and the development of English Literature. + + + +FOOTNOTES: + +[1] Thus the first six Latin words in A glossed are _apodixen_, +_amineæ_, _amites_, _arcontus_, _axungia_; the last six are _arbusta_, +_anser_, _affricus_, _atticus_, _auiaria_, _avena_; mostly 'hard' +Latin it will be perceived. The Erfurt Glossary is, to a great extent, +a duplicate of the Epinal. + +[2] Thus the first five Latin entries in ab- are _abminiculum_, +_abelena_, _abiecit_, _absida_, _abies_, and the last five _aboleri_, +_ab borea_, _abiles_, _aborsus_, _absorduum_. To find whether a wanted +word in ab- occurs in this glossary, it was necessary to look through +more than two columns containing ninety-five entries. + +[3] An important collection of these early beginnings of lexicography +in England was made so long ago as 1857, by the late distinguished +antiquary Thomas Wright, and published as the first volume of a +Library of National Antiquities. A new edition of this with sundry +emendations and additions was prepared and published in 1884 by +Professor R.F. Wülcker of Leipzig, and the collection is now generally +referred to by scholars in German fashion under the designation of +Wright-Wülcker. + +[4] This is the primary reason why in Middle and Modern English, +unlike what is found in German and Dutch, the terms of culture, art, +science, and philosophy, are of French or, through French, of Latin +origin. The corresponding Old English terms were forgotten during the +age of illiteracy, and when, generations later, the speaker of English +came again to deal with such subjects, he had to do like Layamon, when +he knew no longer _tungol-croeft_, and could refer to it only as 'the +craft ihote _astronomie_ in other kunnes speche.' + +[5] Also _Medulla Grammaticae_, or usually _Grammatice_. + +[6] At the end is an alphabetical list of adjectives; extending from +lf. 79a, col. 2, to 83a, foot. + +[7] It must however be mentioned that the second dictionary of English +and another modern tongue was appropriately 'A Dictionary in Englyshe +and Welshe, moche necessary to all suche Welshemen as wil spedlye +learne the englyshe tongue, thought vnto the kynges maiestie very mete +to be sette forth to the vse of his graces subiectes in Wales, ... by +Wyllyam Salesbury.' The colophon is 'Imprynted at London in Foster +Lane, by me John Waley. 1547.' + +[8] In the Dedication he says, 'Which worke, long ago for the most +part, was gathered by me, but lately augmented by my sonne Thomas, who +now is Schoolemaister in London.' + +[9] 'To the right honourable, worshipfull, vertuous, & godlie Ladies, +the Lady Hastings, the Lady Dudley, the Lady Mountague, the Ladie +Wingfield, and the Lady Leigh, his Christian friends, R.C. wisheth +great prosperitie in this life, with increase of grace, and peace from +GOD our Father, through Iesus Christ our Lord and onely Sauiour.' (A +2.) + +[10] His explanations of such words were curt enough: '_Cat_, a +Creature well known'; '_Horse_, a Beast well known'; '_Man_, a +Creature endued with Reason.' + +[11] 'An interleaved copy of Bailey's dictionary in folio he made the +repository of the several articles.' _Works of J._, 1787, I. 175. + +[12] Pg. _coco_, a grinning mask, applied to the coco-nut because of +the three holes and central protuberance at its apex, suggesting two +eyes, a mouth, and nose. + +[13] The following are examples of his own practice: _The Rambler_ +(1751), No. 153, par. 3, 'I was in my eighteenth year dispatched to +the university.' Ibid., No. 161, par. 4, 'I ... soon dispatched a +bargain on the usual terms.' _Letter to Mrs. Thrale_, May 6, 1776, 'We +dispatched our journey very peaceably.' + +[14] Among such must be reckoned the treatment of words in the +explanation of which Johnson showed political or personal animus or +whimsical humour, as in the well-known cases of _whig_, _tory_, +_excise_, _pension_, _pensioner_, _oats_, _Grub-street_, +_lexicographer_ (see Boswell's _Johnson_, ed. Birkbeck Hill, i. 294); +although it must be admitted that these have come to be among the +famous spots of the Dictionary, and have given gentle amusement to +thousands, to whom it has been a delight to see 'human nature' too +strong for lexicographic decorum. + +[15] In some cases, long Lists of the Authors, from whose works 'the +illustrative quotations have been selected,' are given, without the +statement that many of those quotations have not actually been +selected from the authors and works named, but have merely been +annexed from Johnson or one of his supplementers. + +[16] The famous _Deutsches Wörterbuch_ of Jacob and Wilhelm Grimm, +after many years of preparation, began to be printed in 1852; Jacob +Grimm himself died in 1863, in the middle of the letter F; the work is +expected to reach the end of S by the close of the century. The great +_Woordenboek der Nederlandsche Taal_ was commenced in 1852; its first +volume, _A--Ajuin_, was published in 1882, and it is not yet quite +half-finished. Of the new edition of the _Vocabolario della Crusca_, +which is to a certain extent on historical principles, Vol. I, +containing A, was published in 1863, and Vol. VIII, completing I, in +1899; at least twenty-five more years will be required to reach Z. +None of these works embraces so long a period of the language, or is +so strictly historical in method, as the New English Dictionary. +Rather are they, like Littré's great _Dictionnaire de la Langue +Française_, Dictionaries of the modern language, with the current +words more or less historically treated. + + + + + + +End of the Project Gutenberg EBook of The evolution of English lexicography +by James Augustus Henry Murray + +*** END OF THE PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK 11694 *** diff --git a/11694-h/11694-h.htm b/11694-h/11694-h.htm new file mode 100644 index 0000000..eea122f --- /dev/null +++ b/11694-h/11694-h.htm @@ -0,0 +1,1595 @@ +<!DOCTYPE HTML PUBLIC "-//W3C//DTD HTML 4.01//EN"> +<html> +<head> +<meta http-equiv="Content-Type" content="text/html; charset=UTF-8"> +<title>The Project Gutenberg Etext of The Evolution of English Lexicography By James A.H. Murray</title> +<style type="text/css"> + /*<![CDATA[ XML blockout */ + <!-- + P { text-align: justify; } + H1,H2,H3,H4,H5,H6 { + text-align: center; /* all headings centered */ + } + HR { width: 33%; + margin-top: 1em; + margin-bottom: 1em; + } + BODY{margin-left: 10%; + margin-right: 10%; + } + + .poem p {margin: 0; padding-left: 3em; text-indent: -3em;} + + // --> + /* XML end ]]>*/ +</style> + +</head> +<body> +<div>*** START OF THE PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK 11694 ***</div> + +<h2>THE ROMANES LECTURE<br />1900</h2> + +<h1>The Evolution of English Lexicography</h1> + +<h2>BY JAMES A.H. MURRAY</h2> +<h3>M.A., LL.D., D.C.L., PH.D.</h3> + +<h3>DELIVERED IN<br />THE SHELDONIAN THEATRE, OXFORD,<br />JUNE 22, 1900</h3> + +<!--Pg005--> + + + +<p>When the ‘Act to facilitate the provision of Allotments +for the Labouring Classes’ was before the +House of Commons in 1887, a well-known member for +a northern constituency asked the Minister who had +charge of the measure for a definition of the term +<i>allotment</i>, which occurred so often in the Bill. The +Minister somewhat brusquely told his interrogator +to ‘look in the Dictionary,’ at which there was, +according to the newspapers, ‘a laugh.’ The member +warmly protested that, being called upon to consider +a measure dealing with things therein called ‘Allotments’, +a term not known to English Law, nor +explained in the Bill itself, he had a right to ask +for a definition. But the only answer he received +was ‘Johnson's Dictionary! Johnson's Dictionary!’ at +which, according to the newspapers, the House gave +‘another laugh,’ and the interrogator subsided. The +real humour of the situation, which was unfortunately<!--Pg006--> +lost upon the House of Commons, was, that as agricultural +allotments had not been thought of in the +days of Dr. Johnson, no explanation of the term in +this use is to be found in Johnson's Dictionary; as, +however, this happened to be unknown, alike to the +questioner and to the House, the former missed +a chance of ‘scoring’ brilliantly, and the House the +chance of a third laugh, this time at the expense of +the Minister. But the replies of the latter are typical +of the notions of a large number of persons, who +habitually speak of ‘the Dictionary,’ just as they do +of ‘the Bible,’ or ‘the Prayer-book,’ or ‘the Psalms’; +and who, if pressed as to the authorship of these works, +would certainly say that ‘the Psalms’ were composed +by David, and ‘the Dictionary’ by Dr. Johnson.</p> + +<p>I have met persons of intelligence who supposed +that if Dr. Johnson was not the sole author of ‘the +Dictionary’—a notion which, in view of the ‘pushfulness’ +wherewith, in recent times, Dictionaries, +American and other, have been pressed upon public +notice, is now not so easily tenable—he was, at least, +the ‘original author,’ from whose capacious brain that +work first emanated. Whereas, in truth, Dr. Johnson +had been preceded by scores of workers, each of +whom had added his stone or stones to the lexicographic +cairn, which had already risen to goodly +proportions when Johnson made to it his own splendid +contribution.</p> + +<p>For, the English Dictionary, like the English Constitution, +is the creation of no one man, and of no +one age; it is a growth that has slowly developed itself<!--Pg007--> +adown the ages. Its beginnings lie far back in times +almost prehistoric. And these beginnings themselves, +although the English Dictionary of to-day is lineally +developed from them, were neither Dictionaries, nor +even English. As to their language, they were in the +first place and principally Latin: as to their substance, +they consisted, in large part at least, of <i>glosses</i>. They +were Latin, because at the time to which we refer, +the seventh and eighth centuries of our era, Latin was +in Western Europe the only language of books, the +learning of Latin the portal to all learning. And they +were <i>glosses</i> in this wise: the possessor of a Latin +book, or the member of a religious community which +were the fortunate possessors of half-a-dozen books, +in his ordinary reading of this literature, here and +there came across a difficult word which lay outside +the familiar Latin vocabulary. When he had ascertained +the meaning of this, he often, as a help to his +own memory, and a friendly service to those who +might handle the book after him, wrote the meaning +over the word in the original text, in a smaller hand, +sometimes in easier Latin, sometimes, if he knew no +Latin equivalent, in a word of his own vernacular. +Such an explanatory word written over a word of the +text is a <i>gloss</i>. Nearly all the Latin MSS. of religious +or practical treatises, that have come down to us from +the Middle Ages, contain examples of such glosses, +sometimes few, sometimes many. It may naturally be +supposed that this glossing of MSS. began in Celtic +and Teutonic, rather than in Romanic lands. In the +latter, the old Latin was not yet so dead, nor the vulgar<!--Pg008--> +idioms that were growing out of it, as yet so distinct +from it, as to render the glossing of the one by the +other needful. The relation of Latin to, say, the +Romanic of Provence, was like that of literary English +to Lancashire or Somerset dialect; no one thinks +of glossing a literary English book by Somersetshire +word-forms; for, if he can read at all, it is the literary +English that he does read. So if the monk of +Burgundy or Provence could read at all, it was the +Book-Latin that he could and did read. But, to the +Teuton or the Celt, Latin was an entirely foreign +tongue, the meaning of whose words he could not +guess by any likeness to his own; by him Latin had +been acquired by slow and painful labour, and to him +the gloss was an important aid. To the modern +philologist, Teutonic or Celtic, these glosses are very +precious; they have preserved for us a large number +of Old English, Old Irish, Old German words that +occur nowhere else, and which, but for the work of +the old glossators, would have been lost for ever. +No inconsiderable portion of the oldest English +vocabulary has been recovered entirely from these +interlinear glosses; and we may anticipate important +additions to that vocabulary when Professor Napier +gives us the volume in which he has been gathering up +all the unpublished glosses that yet remain in MSS.</p> + +<p>In process of time it occurred to some industrious +reader that it would be a useful exercise of his +industry, to collect out of all the manuscripts to which +he had access, all the glosses that they contained, and +combine them in a list. In this compact form they could<!--Pg009--> +be learned by heart, thus extending the vocabulary +at his command, and making him independent of the +interlinear glosses, and they could also be used in +the school-teaching of pupils and neophytes, so as +sensibly to enlarge their stock of Latin words and +phrases. A collection of glosses, thus copied out and +thrown together into a single list, constituted a <i>Glossarium</i> +or <i>Glossary</i>; it was the remote precursor +of the seventeenth-century ‘Table Alphabetical,’ or +‘Expositor of Hard Words.’</p> + +<p>Such was one of the fountain-heads of English +lexicography; the other is to be found in the fact that +in those distant days, as in our own, the learning of +Latin was the acquisition of a foreign tongue which +involved the learning of a grammar and of a vocabulary. +Both grammar and vocables were probably in the main +communicated by oral teaching, by the living voice of +the master, and were handed down by oral tradition +from generation to generation. The stock of vocables +was acquired by committing to memory classified lists +of words; lists of names of parts of the body, lists of +the names of domestic animals, of wild beasts, of fishes, +of trees, of heavenly bodies, of geographical features, +of names of relationship and kindred, of ranks and +orders of men, of names of trades, of tools, of arms, +of articles of clothing, of church furniture, of diseases, +of virtues and vices, and so on. Such lists of vocables, +with their meaning in the vulgar tongue, were also at +times committed to paper or parchment leaves, and +a collection of these constituted a <i>Vocabularium</i> or +<i>Vocabulary</i>.</p> + +<!--Pg010--> + +<p>In their practical use the Vocabulary and the Glossary +fulfilled similar offices; and so they were often combined; +the possessor of a Vocabulary enlarged it by the +addition of a Glossary, which he or some one before +him had copied out and collected from the glossed +manuscripts of his bibliotheca. He extended it by +copying into it vocabularies and glossaries borrowed +from other scholars; he lent his own collection to be +similarly copied by others. Several such collections +exist formed far back in Old English times, the composite +character of which, partly glossary, partly +vocabulary, reveals itself upon even a cursory examination.</p> + +<p>As these manuscript lists came to be copied and +re-copied, it was seen that their usefulness would be +increased by putting the words and phrases into alphabetical +order, whereby a particular word could be more +readily found than by looking for it in a promiscuous +list of some hundreds or thousands of words. The first +step was to bring together all the words having the +same first letter. The copyist instead of transcribing +the glossary right on as it stood, extracted first all +the words beginning with A; then he went through +it again picking out all the words beginning with B; +then a third time for those with C, and so on with +D, E, and the rest, till he had transcribed the whole, +and his copy was no longer in the fortuitous disorder +of the original, but in what we call <i>first-letter</i> order.</p> + +<p>A still later scribe making a copy of this vocabulary, +or possibly combining two or three lists already in +first-letter order, carried the alphabetical arrangement<!--Pg011--> +one stage further; instead of transcribing the <i>A</i>-words +as they stood, he went through them, picking out +first those that began with <i>Aa-</i>, then those in <i>Ab-</i>, +then those in <i>Ac-</i>, and so on, to <i>Az</i>. Then he did +the same with the <i>B</i>-words, picking out first all in +<i>Ba-</i>, then <i>Be-</i>, <i>Bi-</i>, <i>Bl-</i>, +<i>Bo-</i>, <i>Br-</i>, <i>Bu-</i>, <i>By-</i>; and so +exhausting the <i>B</i>-words. Thus, at length, in this +second recension, the Vocabulary stood, not yet completely +alphabetical, but alphabetized as far as the +second letter of each word.</p> + +<p>All these stages can actually be seen in four of the +most ancient glossaries of English origin that have +come down to us, known respectively, from the libraries +to which they now belong, as the Leiden, the Epinal, +the Erfurt, and the Corpus (the last at Corpus Christi +College, Cambridge). The Leiden Glossary represents +the earliest stage of such a work, being really, in the +main, a collection of smaller glossaries, or rather sets +of glosses, each set entered under the name of the +treatise from which it was extracted, the words in +each being left in the order in which they happened +to come in the treatise or work, without any further +arrangement, alphabetical or other. It appears also +to incorporate in a final section some small earlier +vocabularies or lists of names of animals and other +classes of things. In order to discover whether any +particular word occurs in this glossary, the whole work +from beginning to end must be looked through. The +first advance upon this is seen in the Epinal Glossary, +which uses part at least of the materials of the Leiden, +incorporating with them many others. This glossary<!--Pg012--> +has advanced to <i>first-letter</i> order: all the A-words +come together, followed by all the B-words, and so +on to Z, but there is no further arrangement under +the individual letters<span class="fnmark"><a href="#fntext1" name="fnmark1" id="fnmark1">[1]</a></span>. There are nearly fourteen +columns of words beginning with A, containing each +about forty entries; the whole of these 550 entries +must be looked through to see if a given word occurs +in this glossary. The third stage is represented by +the Corpus Glossary, which contains the materials of +its predecessors, and a great deal more, and in which +the alphabetical arrangement has been carried as far +as the second letter of each word: thus the first +ninety-five words explained begin with <i>Ab-</i>, and the +next seventy-eight with <i>Ac-</i>, and so on, but the +alphabetization goes no further<span class="fnmark"><a href="#fntext2" name="fnmark2" id="fnmark2">[2]</a></span>; the glossary is in +<i>second-letter</i> order. In at least one glossary of the +tenth century, contained in a MS. of the British +Museum (Harl. 3376), the alphabetical arrangement +has been carried as far as the third letter, beyond +which point it does not appear to have advanced.</p> + +<p>The MS. of the Corpus Glossary dates to the early +part of the eighth century; the Epinal and Erfurt—although +the MS. copies that have come down to<!--Pg013--> +us are not older, or not so old—must from their +nature go back as glossaries to a still earlier date, +and the Leiden to an earlier still; so that we carry +back these beginnings of lexicography in England +to a time somewhere between 600 and 700 A.D., and +probably to an age not long posterior to the introduction +of Christianity in the south of England at the end +of the sixth century. Many more vocabularies were +compiled between these early dates and the eleventh +century; and it is noteworthy that those ancient +glossaries and vocabularies not only became fuller and +more orderly as time advanced, but they also became +more <i>English</i>. For, as I have already mentioned, +the primary purpose of the glosses was to explain +difficult <i>Latin</i> words; this was done at first, whenever +possible, by easier Latin words; apparently, only +when none such were known, was the explanation +given in the vernacular, in Old English. In the +Epinal Glossary the English words are thus relatively +few. In the first page they number thirty out of 117, +and in some pages they do not amount to half that +number. In the Corpus Glossary they have become +proportionally more numerous; and in the glossaries +that follow, the Latin explanations are more and +more eliminated and replaced by English ones, until +the vocabularies of the tenth and eleventh centuries, +whether arranged alphabetically or under classified +headings, are truly Latin-English: every Latin word +given is explained by an English one; and we see +clearly that a new aim had gradually evolved itself; +the object was no longer to explain difficult Latin<!--Pg014--> +words, but to give the English equivalents of as +many words as possible, and thus practically to provide +a Latin Dictionary for the use of Englishmen<span class="fnmark"><a href="#fntext3" name="fnmark3" id="fnmark3">[3]</a></span>.</p> + +<p>Learning and literature, science and art, had attained +to fair proportions in England, and in the Old English +tongue, when their progress was arrested by the +Norman Conquest. The Norman Conquest brought to +England law and organization, and welded the country +into a political unity; but it overthrew Old English +learning and literary culture. In literary culture the +Normans were about as far behind the people whom +they conquered as the Romans were when they made +themselves masters of Greece; and it was not till +some two generations after the Conquest, that learning +and literature regained in England somewhat of the +position which they had occupied two centuries earlier. +And this new literary culture was naturally confined to +the French dialect of the conquerors, which had become +the language of court and castle, of church and law, of +chivalry and the chase; while the rich and cultured +tongue of Alfred and Ælfric was left for generations +without literary employment, during which time it lost +nearly all its poetical, philosophical, scientific, and +artistic vocabulary, retaining only the words of common<!--Pg015--> +life and everyday use<span class="fnmark"><a href="#fntext4" name="fnmark4" id="fnmark4">[4]</a></span>. And for more than 300 years +after the Conquest English lexicography stood still. +Between 1066 and 1400, Wright-Wülcker shows only +two meagre vocabularies, occupying some twenty-four +columns of his volume. One of these, of the twelfth +century, is only an echo of the earlier literary age, +a copy of a pre-Conquest glossary, which some scribe +who could still read the classical tongue of the old +West Saxon Court, transliterated into the corrupted +forms of his own generation. The other is a short +vocabulary of the Latin and vernacular names of +plants, a species of class-vocabulary of which there +exist several of rather early date.</p> + +<p>But when we reach the end of the fourteenth century, +English is once more in the ascendant. Robert of +Gloucester, Robert Mannyng of Brunne, Dan Michel +of Canterbury, and Richard Rolle of Hampole, William +Langland and John Wyclif, John Gower and Geoffrey +Chaucer, and many other authors of less known or +entirely unknown name, have written in the tongue +of the people; English has been sanctioned for use +in the courts of law; and, as John of Trevisa tells +us, has, since the ‘furste moreyn’ or Great Pestilence +of 1349 (which Mrs. Markham has taught nineteenth-<!--Pg016-->century +historians to call the ‘Black Death’), been +introduced into the grammar schools in the translation +of Latin exercises, which boys formerly rendered +into French. And under these new conditions lexicographical +activity at once bursts forth with vigour. +Six important vocabularies of the fifteenth century are +printed by Wright-Wülcker, most of them arranged, +like the Old English one of Ælfric, under subject-headings; +but one large one, extending to 2,500 words, +entirely alphabetical. About the middle of the century, +also, was compiled the famous <i>Medulla Grammatices</i><span class="fnmark"><a href="#fntext5" name="fnmark5" id="fnmark5">[5]</a></span>, +designated, with some propriety, ‘the first Latin-English +Dictionary,’ the popularity of which is shown +by the many manuscript copies that still survive; +while it formed the basis of the <i>Ortus</i> (i.e. <i>Hortus</i>) +<i>Vocabulorum</i> or first printed Latin-English Dictionary, +which issued from the press of Wynkyn de Worde +in 1500, and in many subsequent editions down to +1533, as well as in an edition by Pynson in 1509.</p> + +<p>But all the glossaries and vocabularies as yet +mentioned were Latin-English; their primary object +was not English, but the elucidation of Latin. A +momentous advance was made about 1440, when +Brother Galfridus Grammaticus—Geoffrey the Grammarian—a +Dominican friar of Lynn Episcopi in +Norfolk, produced the English-Latin vocabulary, to +which he gave the name of <i>Promptuarium</i> or <i>Promptorium +Parvulorum</i>, the Children's Store-room or +Repository.</p> + +<p>The <i>Promptorium</i>, the name of which has now<!--Pg017--> +become a household word to students of the history +of English, is a vocabulary containing some 10,000 +words—substantives, adjectives, and verbs—with their +Latin equivalents, which, as edited by Mr. Albert +Way for the Camden Society in 1865, makes a goodly +volume. Many manuscript copies of it were made and +circulated, of which six or seven are known to be still +in existence, and after the introduction of printing it +passed through many editions in the presses of Pynson, +Wynkyn de Worde, and Julian Notary.</p> + +<p>Later in the same century, the year 1483 saw the +compilation of a similar, but quite independent work, +which its author named the <i>Catholicon Anglicum</i>, +that is, the English Catholicon or Universal treatise, +after the name of the celebrated Latin dictionary of +the Middle Ages, the <i>Catholicon</i> or <i>Summa</i> of Johannes +de Balbis, or John of Genoa, made in 1286. The +English <i>Catholicon</i> was in itself a work almost equally +valuable with the <i>Promptorium</i>; but it appears never +to have attained to the currency of the <i>Promptorium</i>, +which appeared as a printed book in 1499, while +the <i>Catholicon</i> remained in two MSS. till printed for +the Early English Text Society in 1881.</p> + +<p>The Renascence of Ancient Learning had now +reached England, and during the sixteenth century +there were compiled and published many important +Latin-English and English-Latin vocabularies and +dictionaries. Among these special mention must be +made of the Dictionary of Sir Thomas Elyot, Knight, +the first work, so far as I know, which took to itself +in English what was destined to be the famous name<!--Pg018--> +of DICTIONARY, in mediaeval Latin, <i>Dictionarius liber</i>, +or <i>Dictionarium</i>, literally a repertory of <i>dictiones</i>, a +word originally meaning ‘sayings,’ but already by +the later Latin grammarians used in the sense of +<i>verba</i> or <i>vocabula</i> ‘words.’ The early vocabularies +and dictionaries had many names, often quaint and +striking; thus one of <i>c</i>1420 is entitled the <i>Nominale</i>, +or Name-book; mention has already been made of the +<i>Medulla Grammatices</i>, or Marrow of Grammar, the +<i>Ortus Vocabulorum</i>, or Garden of Words, the <i>Promptorium +Parvulorum</i>, and the <i>Catholicon Anglicum</i>; later +we find the <i>Manipulus Vocabulorum</i>, or Handful of Vocables, +the <i>Alvearie</i> or Beehive, the <i>Abecedarium</i>, the +<i>Bibliotheca</i>, or Library, the <i>Thesaurus</i>, or Treasury of +Words—what Old English times would have called +the <i>Word-hord</i>, the <i>World of Words</i>, the <i>Table Alphabetical</i>, +the <i>English Expositor</i>, the <i>Ductor in Linguas</i>, +or Guide to the Tongues, the <i>Glossographia</i>, the <i>New +World of Words</i>, the <i>Etymologicum</i>, the <i>Gazophylacium</i>; +and it would have been impossible to predict in the +year 1538, when Sir Thomas Elyot published his +‘Dictionary,’ that this name would supplant all the +others, and even take the place of the older and +better-descended word <i>Vocabulary</i>; much less that +<i>Dictionary</i> should become so much a name to conjure +with, as to be applied to works which are not word-books +at all, but reference-books on all manner of +subjects, as Chronology, Geography, Music, Commerce, +Manufactures, Chemistry, or National Biography, +arranged in Alphabetical or ‘Dictionary order.’ +The very phrase, ‘Dictionary order,’ would in the<!--Pg019--> +first half of the sixteenth century have been unmeaning, +for all dictionaries were not yet alphabetical. +There is indeed no other connexion between a dictionary +and alphabetical order, than that of a balance +of convenience. Experience has shown that though +an alphabetical order makes the matter of a dictionary +very disjointed, scattering the terminology of a particular +art, science, or subject, all over the book, and +even when related words come together, often putting +the unimportant derivative in front of the important +primitive word, it is yet that by which a word or +heading can be found, with least trouble and exercise +of thought. But this experience has been only gradually +acquired; even now the native dictionaries of +some Oriental languages are often not in alphabetical +order; in such a language as Chinese, indeed, there +is no alphabetical order in which to place the words, +and they follow each other in the dictionary in a +purely arbitrary and conventional fashion. In English, +as we have seen, many of the vocabularies from the +eleventh to the fifteenth century, were arranged under +class-headings according to subject; and, although Sir +Thomas Elyot's Dictionary was actually in alphabetical +order, that of J. Withals, published in 1554, under the +title ‘A short dictionarie for young beginners,’ and +with the colophon ‘Thus endeth this Dictionary very +useful for Children, compiled by J. Withals,’ reverts +to the older arrangement of subject-classes, as Names +of things in the Æther or skie, the xii Signes, the +vii Planets, Tymes, Seasons, Other times in the yere, +the daies of the weeke, the Ayre, the viii windes, the<!--Pg020--> +iiii partes of the worlde, Byrdes, Bees, Flies, and +other, the Water, the Sea, Fishes, a Shippe with other +Water vessels, the earth, Mettales, Serpents, woorms +and creepinge beastes, Foure-footed beastes, &c.<span class="fnmark"><a href="#fntext6" name="fnmark6" id="fnmark6">[6]</a></span></p> + +<p>It is unnecessary in this lecture to recount even +the names of the Latin-English and English-Latin +dictionaries of the sixteenth century. It need only be +mentioned that there were six successive and successively +enlarged editions of Sir Thomas Elyot; that +the last three of these were edited by Thomas Cooper, +‘Schole-Maister of Maudlens in Oxford’ (the son of +an Oxford tradesman, and educated as a chorister in +Magdalen College School, who rose to be Dean of +Christ Church and Vice-Chancellor of the University, +and to hold successively the episcopal sees of Lincoln +and Winchester), and that Cooper, in 1565, published +his great <i>Thesaurus Linguæ Romanæ et Britannicæ</i>, +‘opera et industria Thomæ Cooperi Magdalenensis,’ +founded upon the great French work of Robert +Stephens (Estienne), the learned French scholar and +printer. Of this work Martin Marprelate says in his +<i>Epistle</i> (Arber, p. 42), ‘His Lordship of Winchester +is a great Clarke, for he hath translated his Dictionarie, +called Cooper's Dictionarie, verbatim out of Robert +Stephanus his <i>Thesaurus</i>, and ill-favoured too, they +say!’ This was, however, the criticism of an adversary; +Cooper had added to Stephens's work many accessions +from his editions of Sir Thomas Elyot, and other +sources; his <i>Thesaurus</i> was the basis of later Latin-<!--Pg021-->English +dictionaries, and traces of it may still be discovered +in the Latin-English dictionaries of to-day.</p> + +<p>Of printed English-Latin works, after the <i>Promptorium</i>, +one of the earliest was the <i>Vulgaria</i> of William +Herman, Headmaster and Provost of Eton, printed by +Pynson in 1519. This is a <i>Dictionarium</i> or <i>liber dictionarius</i> +in the older sense, for it consists of short +<i>dictiones</i> or sayings, maxims, and remarks, arranged +under subject-headings, such as <i>De Pietate</i>, <i>De Impietate</i>, +<i>De corporis dotibus</i>, <i>De Valetudinis cura</i>, <i>De Hortensibus</i>, +<i>De Bellicis</i>, and finally a heading <i>Promiscua</i>. It may +therefore be conceived that it is not easy to find +any particular <i>dictio</i>. Horman was originally a Cambridge +man; but, according to Wood, he was elected +a Fellow of New College, Oxford, in 1477, the +very year in which Caxton printed his first book +in England, and in this connexion it is interesting to +find among the illustrative sentences in the <i>Vulgaria</i>, +this reference to the new art (sign. Oij): ‘The prynters +haue founde a crafte to make bokes by brasen letters +sette in ordre by a frame,’ which is thus latinized: +‘Chalcographi artem excogitauerunt imprimendi libros +qua literæ formis æreis excudunt.’ Of later English-Latin +dictionaries two deserve passing mention: the +<i>Abecedarium</i> of Richard Huloet or Howlet, a native +of Wisbech, which appeared in the reign of Edward VI, +in 1552, and the Alvearie of John Baret, Fellow of +Trinity College, Cambridge, published under Elizabeth +in 1573. The Abecedarium, although it gives the +Latin equivalents, may be looked upon to some extent +as an English dictionary, for many of the words have<!--Pg022--> +an English explanation, as well as a Latin rendering; +thus <i>Almesse</i>, or gift of dryncke, meate, or money, +distributed to the poore, <i>sporta</i>, <i>sportula</i>; <i>Amyable</i>, +pleasante, or hauing a good grace, <i>amabilis</i>; <i>Anabaptistes</i>, +a sorte of heretyques of late tyme in Germanye +about the yere of our Lorde God 1524.... <i>Anabaptistæ</i>.</p> + +<p>Baret's <i>Alvearie</i> of 1573 has been justly styled ‘one +of the most quaint and charming of all the early +Dictionaries.’ In his ‘Prefatory Address to the Reader’ +the author tells, in fine Elizabethan prose, both how +his book came into existence, and why he gave it +its curious name:—</p> + +<blockquote> +<p>About eighteene yeeres agone, hauing pupils at Cambridge +studious of the Latine tongue, I vsed them often to write Epistles +and Theames together, and dailie to translate some peece of +English into Latine, for the more speedie attaining of the same. +And after we had a little begun, perceiuing what great trouble +it was to come running to me for euerie worde they missed, +knowing then of no other Dictionarie to helpe vs, but Sir Thomas +Eliots Librarie, which was come out a little before; I appointed +them certaine leaues of the same booke euerie daie to write the +english before the Latin, & likewise to gather a number of fine +phrases out of Cicero, Terence, Cæsar, Liuie, &c. & to set them +vnder seuerall titles, for the more readie finding them againe at +their neede. Thus, within a yeere or two, they had gathered +together a great volume, which (for the apt similitude betweene +the good Scholers and diligent Bees in gathering their waxe and +honie into their Hiue) I called then their <i>Aluearie</i>, both for +a memoriall by whom it was made, and also by this name to +incourage other to the like diligence, for that they should not see +their worthie praise for the same, vnworthilie drowned in obliuion. +Not long after, diuers of our friends borrowing this our worke +which we had thus contriued & wrought onelie for our owne +priuate vse, often and many waies moued me to put it in print for +the common profet of others, and the publike propagation of the +Latine tongue.</p> +</blockquote> + +<p>But when Baret at length resolved to comply with<!--Pg023--> +this suggestion, there were many difficulties to be +overcome, the expense of the work being not the +least:—</p> + +<blockquote> +<p>And surelie, had not the right honourable Sir Thomas Smith +knight, principall Secretarie to the Queenes Maiestie, that noble +Theseus of learning, and comfortable Patrone to all Students, and +the right Worshipfull M. Nowell, Deane of Pawles, manie waies +encouraged me in this wearie worke (the charges were so great, +and the losse of my time so much grieued me) I had neuer bene +able alone to haue wrestled against so manie troubles, but long ere +this had cleane broken off our worke begun, and cast it by for +euer.</p> +</blockquote> + +<p>Between the dates of the <i>Abecedarium</i> and the +<i>Alvearie</i>, Peter Levins, Fellow of Magdalen College, +Oxford, published, in 1570, the first essay at an +English Riming Dictionary, the <i>Manipulus Vocabulorum</i>, +or Handful of Vocables, an original copy of which is +in the Bodleian Library; it was reprinted for the +Early English Text Society in 1867 by Mr. H. B. +Wheatley. The English words are arranged in order +of their terminations, and each is furnished with a +Latin equivalent.</p> + +<p>Of all the works which we have yet considered, +Latin was an essential element: whether the object +was, as in the glossaries and vocabularies before the +fifteenth century, to explain the Latin words themselves, +or as in the <i>Promptorium</i> and <i>Catholicon</i>, the <i>Abecedarium</i> +and the <i>Alvearie</i>, and other works of the +sixteenth century, to render English words into Latin. +But a new stage of development was marked by the +appearance of dictionaries of English with another +modern language. In 1521, the ‘Introductory to write<!--Pg024--> +and to pronounce Frenche,’ by Alexander Barclay, +author of the ‘Ship of Fooles,’ was issued from the +press of Robert Coplande; and about 1527 Giles du +Guez or du Wes (anglicized Dewes), French teacher +to the Lady Mary, afterwards Queen Mary, published +his ‘Introductorie for to lerne to rede, to pronounce +and to speke French trewly.’ In addition to grammatical +rules and dialogues, it contains a select vocabulary +English and French. In 1514, Mary Tudor, younger +sister of Henry VIII, became the unwilling bride of +Louis XII of France. To initiate the princess in her +husband's tongue, John Palsgrave, a native of London +and graduate of Cambridge, who had subsequently +studied in Paris, was chosen as her tutor, and accompanied +her to France. For her use Palsgrave prepared +his celebrated <i>Esclarcissement de la Langue Françoyse</i>, +which he subsequently revised and published in 1530, +after his return to England, where he was incorporated +M.A. at Oxford. The <i>Esclarcissement</i> is a famous +book, at once grammar and vocabulary, and may be +considered as the earliest dictionary of a modern +language, in French as well as in English. It was +reprinted in 1852 at the expense of the French +Government in the series of publications entitled +‘Collection de documents inédits sur l'histoire de +France, publiés par les soins du Ministre de l'Instruction +Publique, Deuxième Série—Histoire des +Lettres et des Sciences.’ It is a trite saying that +‘they do these things better in France’; but it is, +nevertheless, sometimes true. Amid all the changes +of government which France has seen in modern<!--Pg025--> +times, it has never been forgotten that the history +of the French language, and of French letters and +French science, is part of the history of France; the +British government has not even now attained to +the standpoint of recognizing this: among the historical +documents published under the direction of +the authorities of the Record Office, there is no series +illustrating the history of the language, the literature, +or the science of England.</p> + +<p>Next to French, the continental languages most +important to Englishmen in the sixteenth century, +were Italian and Spanish, of both of which, accordingly, +dictionaries were published before the end +of the century<span class="fnmark"><a href="#fntext7" name="fnmark7" id="fnmark7">[7]</a></span>. In 1599 Richard Percevall, Gent., +published his dictionary in Spanish and English; and +in the same year ‘resolute John Florio’ (who in his +youth resided in Worcester Place, Oxford, and was +matriculated at Magdalen College in 1581) brought out +his Italian-English Dictionary, the <i>World of Words</i>, +which he re-published in a much enlarged form in +1611, with dedication to the Queen of James I, as +<i>Queen Anna's New World of Words</i>. This year, +also, Randall Cotgrave published his famous French-English +Dictionary, which afterwards passed through<!--Pg026--> +so many editions. In the absence as yet of any +merely English dictionary, the racy English vocabulary +of Florio and Cotgrave is of exceeding value, and +has been successfully employed in illustrating the +contemporary language of Shakspere, to whom Florio, +patronized as he was by the Earls of Southampton and +Pembroke, was probably personally known. Thus, the +same year which saw England provided with the version +of the Bible which was to be so intimately identified +with the language of the next three centuries, saw her +also furnished with adequate dictionaries of French, +Italian, and Spanish; and, in 1617, a still more ambitious +work was accomplished by John Minsheu +in the production of a polyglot dictionary of English +with ten other languages, British or Welsh, Low +Dutch, High Dutch, French, Italian, Spanish, Portuguese, +Latin, Greek, and Hebrew, which he entitled +‘Ηγεμων εις +τας γλωσσας, +id est <i>Ductor in Linguas</i>, the +Guide into Tongues.’</p> + +<p>But though in these works there is necessarily +contained much of the material of an English dictionary, +so that we can from them recover most of +the current vocabulary, no one appears before the +end of the sixteenth century to have felt that Englishmen +could want a dictionary to help them to the +knowledge and correct use of their own language. +That language was either an in-born faculty, or it +was inhaled with their native air, or imbibed with +their mothers' milk; how could they need a book +to teach them to speak their mother-tongue? To +the scholars of the Renascence the notion would<!--Pg027--> +have seemed absurd—as absurd as it has seemed to +some of their descendants in the nineteenth century, +that an English grammar-school or an English university +should trouble itself about such aboriginal +products of the English skull, as English language +and literature. But by the end of the sixteenth +century, as by the end of the nineteenth, there was +a moving of the waters: the Renascence of ancient +learning had itself brought into English use thousands +of learned words, from Latin, Greek, Hebrew, Arabic, +and other languages, ‘ink-horn terms,’ as they were +called by Bale and by Puttenham, unknown to, and +not to be imbibed from, mother or grandmother. A +work exhibiting the spelling, and explaining the +meaning, of these new-fangle ‘hard words’ was the +felt want of the day; and the first attempt to supply +it marks, on the whole, the most important point in +the evolution of the modern English Dictionary.</p> + +<p>In 1604, Robert Cawdrey, who had been a schoolmaster +at Okeham, and afterwards at Coventry, published +a modest octavo of 120 pages, 5½ inches by 3½, +calling itself <i>The Table Alphabeticall of Hard Words</i>, +in which he set forth the proper spelling and meaning +of some 3,000 of these learned terms; his work +reached a third edition in 1612<span class="fnmark"><a href="#fntext8" name="fnmark8" id="fnmark8">[8]</a></span>. In 1616, Dr. John +Bullokar, then resident in Chichester, followed with +a work of the same kind and size, named by him +<i>An English Expositor</i>, of which numerous editions<!--Pg028--> +came out, one as late as 1684. And in 1623 appeared +the work which first assumed the title of ‘The +English Dictionarie,’ by H.C., Gent. H.C., we learn +from the dedication, was Henry Cockeram, to whom +John Ford the dramatist addressed the following congratulatory +lines:—</p> + +<blockquote> +<p><i>To my industrious friend, the Author of this English Dictionarie</i>,<br /> +MR. HENRY COCKRAM OF EXETER.</p> + +<div class="poem"> +<p>Borne in the West? liue there? so far from Court?</p> +<p>From Oxford, Cambridge, London? yet report</p> +<p>(Now in these daies of Eloquence) such change</p> +<p>Of words? vnknown? vntaught? tis new and strange.</p> +<p>Let Gallants therefore skip no more from hence</p> +<p>To Italic, France, Spaine, and with expence</p> +<p>Waste time and faire estates, to learne new fashions</p> +<p>Of complementall phrases, soft temptations</p> +<p>To glorious beggary: Here let them hand</p> +<p>This Booke; here studie, reade, and vnderstand:</p> +<p>Then shall they find varietie at Home,</p> +<p>As curious as at Paris, or at Rome.</p> +<p>For my part I confesse, hadst not thou writ,</p> +<p>I had not beene acquainted with more wit</p> +<p>Than our old English taught; but now I can</p> +<p>Be proud to know I have a Countryman</p> +<p>Hath strugled for a fame, and what is more,</p> +<p>Gain'd it by paths of Art, vntrod before.</p> +<p>The benefit is generall; the crowne</p> +<p>Of praise particular, and thats <i>thine owne</i>.</p> +<p>What should I say? thine owne deserts inspire thee,</p> +<p>Twere base to enuie, I must then admire thee.</p> +</div> + +<p>A friend and louer of thy paines,<br /> +IOHN FORD.</p> +</blockquote> + +<p>And a deeply interesting little book is this diminutive +ancestor of the modern English Dictionary, to describe +which adequately would take far more time than the +limits of this lecture afford. It is divided into three +parts: Part I contains the hard words with their<!--Pg029--> +explanation in ordinary language; and instructive it is +to see what words were then considered hard and +unknown. Many of them certainly would be so still: +as, for example, <i>abgregate</i>, ‘to lead out of the flock’; +<i>acersecomick</i>, ‘one whose hair was never cut’; <i>adcorporated</i>, +‘married’; <i>adecastick</i>, ‘one that will do just +howsoever’; <i>bubulcitate</i>, ‘to cry like a cow-boy’; <i>collocuplicate</i>, +‘to enrich’—concerning which we wonder who +used them, or where Cockeram found them; but we +are surprised to find among these hard words <i>abandon</i>, +<i>abhorre</i>, <i>abrupt</i>, <i>absurd</i>, <i>action</i>, +<i>activitie</i>, and <i>actresse</i>, explained +as ‘a woman doer,’ for the stage actress had +not yet appeared. <i>Blunder</i>, ‘to bestir oneself,’ and +<i>Garble</i>, ‘to clense things from dust,’ remind us that +the meanings of words are subject to change. The +Second Part contains the ordinary words ‘explained’ +by their hard equivalents, and is intended to teach +a learned style. The plain man or gentlewoman may +write a letter in his or her natural language, and then +by turning up the simple words in the dictionary alter +them into their learned equivalents. Thus ‘abound’ +may be altered into <i>exuperate</i>, ‘too great plenty’ into +<i>uberty</i>, ‘he and I are of one age’ into <i>we are coetaneous</i>, +‘youthful babbling’ into <i>juvenile inaniloquence</i>—a useful +expression to hurl at an opponent in the Oxford +Union.</p> + +<p>The last part is the most entertaining of all: it is +headed ‘The Third Part, treating of Gods and Goddesses, +Men and Women, Boyes and Maides, Giants +and Diuels, Birds and Beasts, Monsters and Serpents, +Wells and Riuers, Herbes, Stones, Trees, Dogges,<!--Pg030--> +Fishes, and the like’; it is a key to the allusions +to classical, historical, mythological, and other marvellous +persons, animals, and things, to be met with +in polite literature. A good example of its contents +is the well-known article on the <i>Crocodile</i>:—</p> + +<blockquote> +<p><i>Crocodile</i>, a beast hatched of an egge, yet some of them grow to +a great bignesse, as 10. 20. or 30. foot in length: it hath cruell teeth +and scaly back, with very sharpe clawes on his feete: if it see +a man afraid of him, it will eagerly pursue him, but on the +contrary, if he be assaulted he wil shun him. Hauing eaten +the body of a man, it will weepe ouer the head, but in fine eate the +head also: thence came the Prouerb, he shed Crocodile teares, +viz., fayned teares.</p> +</blockquote> + +<p>Appreciation of Cockeram's ‘Dictionarie’ was marked +by the numerous editions through which it passed +down as late as 1659. Meanwhile Thomas Blount, +Barrister of the Inner Temple, and correspondent of +Anthony à Wood, was devoting the leisure hours +of twenty years to his ‘<i>Glossographia</i>: or a Dictionary +interpreting all such hard words, whether Hebrew, +Greek, Latin,’ etc., ‘as are now used in our refined +English Tongue,’ of which the first edition saw the +light in 1656.</p> + +<p>I suppose it is a truism, that the higher position +now taken by English studies, is intimately interwoven +with the advances which have been made during the +last quarter of a century in the higher education of +women, and that but for the movement to let women +share in the advantages of a university education, +it is doubtful whether the nineteenth century would +have witnessed the establishment of a School of +English Language and Literature at Oxford. In connexion<!--Pg031--> +with this it is a noteworthy fact, that the +preparation of these early seventeenth century English +dictionaries was also largely due to a consideration +of the educational wants of women. The ‘Table +Alphabeticall’ of Robert Cawdrey, which was dedicated +to five ‘right honourable, Worshipfull, vertuous, and +godlie Ladies<span class="fnmark"><a href="#fntext9" name="fnmark9" id="fnmark9">[9]</a></span>,’ the sisters of his former pupil, Sir +James Harrington, Knight, bears on its title-page that it +is ‘gathered for the benefit and help of Ladies, Gentlewomen, +or any other vnskilfull persons.’ Bullokar's +<i>Expositor</i> was dedicated ‘to the Right Honorable and +Vertvovs his Singvlar Good Ladie, the Ladie Jane +Viscountesse Mountague,’ under whose patronage he +hoped to see the work ‘perhaps gracefully admitted +among greatest Ladies and studious Gentlewomen, +to whose reading (I am made belieue) it will not prooue +altogether vngratefull.’ In similar words, the title-page +of Cockeram's Dictionary proclaims its purpose +of ‘Enabling as well Ladies and Gentlewomen ... as +also Strangers of any Nation to the vnderstanding +of the more difficult Authors already printed in our +Language, and the more speedy attaining of an elegant +perfection of the English tongue, both in reading, +speaking, and writing.’ And Thomas Blount, setting +forth the purpose of his <i>Glossographia</i>, says, in words +of which one seems to have heard an echo in reference<!--Pg032--> +to an English School in this University, ‘It is chiefly +intended for the more-knowing Women, and less-knowing +Men; or indeed for all such of the unlearned, +who can but finde in an Alphabet the word they understand +not.’</p> + +<p>It is noticeable that all these references to the needs +of women disappear from the later editions, and are +wanting in later dictionaries after 1660; whether this +was owing to the fact that the less-knowing women +had now come upsides with the more-knowing men; +or that with the Restoration, female education went +out of fashion, and women sank back again into elegant +illiteracy, I leave to the historian to discover; I only, +as a lexicographer, record the fact that from the +Restoration the dictionaries are silent about the education +of women, till we pass the Revolution settlement +and reach the Age of Queen Anne, when J.K. in +1702 tells us that his dictionary is ‘chiefly designed +for the benefit of young Scholars, Tradesmen, Artificers, +and the female sex, who would learn to spell +truely.’</p> + +<p>Blount's <i>Glossographia</i> went through many editions +down to 1707; but two years after its appearance, +Edward Phillips, the son of Milton's sister Anne, published +his <i>New World of Words</i>, which Blount with +some reason considered to be largely plagiarized from +his book. He held his peace, however, until Phillips +brought out a Law-Dictionary or <i>Nomothetes</i>, also largely +copied from his own <i>Nomo-lexicon</i>, when he could +refrain himself no longer, and burst upon the world +with his indignant pamphlet, ‘A World of Errors<!--Pg033--> +discovered in the New World of Words, and in +Nomothetes or the Interpreter,’ in which he exhibits +the proofs of Phillips's cribbing, and makes wild sport +of the cases in which his own errors and misprints +had either been copied or muddled by his plagiarist. +The latter did not vouchsafe a reply; he knew a better +plan; he quietly corrected in his next edition the +mistakes which Blount had so conveniently pointed +out, and his ‘New World of Words,’ furnished with +an engraved frontispiece, containing views of Oxford +and Cambridge, and portraits of some Oxford and +Cambridge scholars, lived on in successive editions +as long as Blount's.</p> + +<p>Time and space forbid me even to recount the +later dictionaries of this class and period; we need +only mention that of Elisha Coles, a chorister and +subsequently matriculated student of Magdalen College +(of which his uncle, Elisha Coles, was steward under +the Commonwealth), a meritorious work which passed +through numerous editions down to 1732; and that +of Edward Cocker, the celebrated arithmetician and +writing-master of St. George's, Southwark, by whom +people still sometimes asseverate ‘according to Cocker.’ +This was published after his death, ‘from the author's +correct copy,’ by John Hawkins, in 1704, with a portrait +of the redoubtable Cocker himself in flowing +wig and gown, and the following lines:—</p> + +<blockquote> +<div class="poem"> +<p>COCKER, who in fair writing did excell,</p> +<p>And in Arithmetic perform'd as well,</p> +<p>This necessary work took next in hand,</p> +<p>That Englishmen might English understand.</p> +</div> +</blockquote> + +<!--Pg034--> + +<p>The last edition of Phillips' <i>New World of Words</i> +was edited after his death, with numerous additions, +by John Kersey, son of John Kersey the mathematician. +Two years later Kersey threw the materials +into another form and published it in an octavo, as +Kersey's ‘<i>Dictionarium Anglo-Britannicum</i>, or a General +English Dictionary,’ of which three editions appeared +before 1721. In this work there are included a considerable +number of obsolete words, chiefly from +Spenser and his contemporaries, marked O., and in +some cases erroneously explained. Professor Skeat +has pointed out that this was the source of Chatterton's +Elizabethan vocabulary, and that he took the +obsolete words, which he attributed to Rowley, +erroneous explanations and all, direct from Kersey's +Dictionary.</p> + +<p>More than 100 years had now elapsed since Robert +Cawdrey prepared his ‘Table Alphabeticall,’ and +nearly a century since the work of Cockeram; and +all the dictionaries which had meanwhile appeared, +although their size had steadily increased, were, in +purpose and fact, only what these works had been—Vocabularies +of ‘Hard Words,’ not of words in +general. The notion that an English Dictionary ought +to contain <i>all</i> English words had apparently as yet +occurred to no one; at least no one had proposed +to carry the idea into practice. But this further step +in the evolution of the modern dictionary was now +about to be made, and the man who made it was +one of the most deserving in the annals of English +lexicography. We now, looking back on the eighteenth<!--Pg035--> +century, associate it chiefly with the work of Dr. +Johnson; but down beyond the middle of that century, +and to the man in the street much later, by far the +best-known name in connexion with dictionaries was +that of NATHANAEL BAILEY. An advertisement appended +to the first edition of his Dictionary runs +thus: ‘Youth Boarded, and taught the Hebrew, +Greek, and Latin languages, in a Method more Easy +and Expedient than is common; also, other School-learning, +by the <i>Author</i> of this <i>Dictionary</i>, to be +heard of at Mr. Batley's, Bookseller, at the Sign of +the Dove in Paternoster Row.’ Bailey was the author +or editor of several scholarly works; but, for us, his +great work was his <i>Universal Etymological English +Dictionary</i>, published in 1721. In this he aimed at +including all English words; yet not for the mere +boast of ‘completeness,’ but for a practical purpose. +The dictionary was not merely explanatory, it was +also etymological; and though Englishmen might not +need to be told the meaning of <i>man</i> or <i>woman</i>, <i>dog</i> +or <i>cat</i><span class="fnmark"><a href="#fntext10" name="fnmark10" id="fnmark10">[10]</a></span>, they might want a hint as to their derivation. +Bailey had hit the nail aright: successive editions +were called for almost every two years during the +century; when the author died, in 1742, the tenth +edition was in the press. In that of 1731, Bailey +first marked the stress-accent, a step in the direction +of indicating pronunciation. In 1730, moreover, he +brought out with the aid of some specialists, his folio<!--Pg036--> +dictionary, the greatest lexicographical work yet undertaken +in English, into which he also introduced +diagrams and proverbs. This is an interesting book +historically, for, according to Sir John Hawkins, it +formed the working basis of Dr. Johnson<span class="fnmark"><a href="#fntext11" name="fnmark11" id="fnmark11">[11]</a></span>.</p> + +<p>Bailey had many imitators and rivals, nearly all of +whom aimed, like him, at including all words; of +these I need only name Dyche and Pardon 1735, +B.N. Defoe 1735, and Benjamin Martin 1749.</p> + +<p>During the second quarter of the century, the feeling +arose among literary men, as well as among the +booksellers, that the time had come for the preparation +of a ‘Standard Dictionary’ of the English tongue. +The language had now attained a high degree of +literary perfection; a perfect prose style, always a +characteristic of maturity, had been created; a brilliant +galaxy of dramatists and essayists—Dryden, Pope, +Addison, Steele, Swift, Defoe—had demonstrated that +English was capable of expressing clearly and elegantly +everything that needed to be expressed in +language. The age of Queen Anne was compared +to the Ciceronian age of Latin, or the age of Aristotle +and Plato in Greek. But in both these cases, as +indeed in that of every known ancient people, the +language, after reaching its acme of perfection, had +begun to decay and become debased: the golden age +of Latinity had passed into a silvern, and that into +a brazen and an iron age. The fear was that a like +fate should overtake English also; to avert which<!--Pg037--> +calamity the only remedy appeared to be to <i>fix the +language</i> by means of a ‘Standard Dictionary,’ which +should register the proper sense and use of every +word and phrase, from which no polite writer henceforth +would be expected to deviate; but, even as +generation after generation of boys and men found +their perfection of Latinity in the imitation of Cicero, +so all succeeding ages of Englishmen should find +their ideal of speech and writing fixed for ever in +this standard dictionary. To us of a later age, +with our fuller knowledge of the history of language, +and our wider experience of its fortunes, when it has +to be applied to entirely new fields of knowledge, +such as have been opened to us since the birth of +modern science, this notion seems childlike and pathetic. +But it was eminently characteristic of the eighteenth +century, an age of staid and decorous subsidence from +the energetic restlessness of the seventeenth—an age +in which men eschewed revolution and innovation, +and devoted themselves assiduously to conserve, consolidate, +polish, refine, and make the best of what +they had.</p> + +<p>In this notion of ascertaining, purifying, refining, and +fixing the language, England was only following in +the wake of some other countries. In Italy the +<i>Accademia della Crusca</i>, and in France the <i>Academie +française</i>, had been instituted for this very purpose, +and the latter had, after twenty years of preparation, +and forty more years of work, published the first edition +of a dictionary in which the French language was +(fondly and vainly) supposed to be thus ascertained,<!--Pg038--> +sifted, and fixed for ever. England had no Academy; +but it was thought that what had been done in France +by the Forty Immortals might perhaps be done here +by some leading man of letters. The idea had, it +appears, been put before Alexander Pope, and approved +by him; he is said even to have drawn up a list of +the authors whose writings might be taken as authorities +for such a dictionary; but he died in 1744, before +anything further was done. The subject seems then +to have been pressed upon the attention of SAMUEL +JOHNSON; but it was not till 1747 that the matter took +definite shape, when a syndicate of five or six London +booksellers contracted with Johnson to produce the +desired standard dictionary in the space of three +years for the sum of fifteen hundred guineas. Alas +for human calculations, and especially for those of dictionary +makers! The work occupied nearly thrice the +specified time, and, ere it was finished, the stipulated +sum had been considerably overdrawn. At length, +in 1755, appeared the two massive folios, each 17 inches +long, 10 inches wide, and 3½ inches thick, entitled +‘A | Dictionary | of the | English Language | in which | +the Words are deduced from their Originals, | and | +illustrated in their different significations | by Examples +from the Best Writers. | By Samuel Johnson.’ The +limits of this lecture do not permit me to say one +tithe of what might and ought to be said of this great +work. For the present purpose it must suffice to +point out that the special new feature which it contributed +to the evolution of the modern dictionary was +the illustration of the use of each word by a selection of<!--Pg039--> +literary quotations, and the more delicate appreciation +and discrimination of senses which this involved and +rendered possible. Only where he had no quotations +did Johnson insert words from Bailey's folio, or other +source, with <i>Dict.</i> as the authority. The literary +quotations were entirely supplied by himself from his +capacious memory, or from books specially perused +and marked by him for extraction. When he first +began his work in the room in Gough Square, his +whole time was devoted to thus reading and marking +books, from which six clerkly assistants copied the +marked quotations. The fact that many of the quotations +were inserted from memory without verification +(a practice facilitated by Johnson's plan of merely +naming the author, without specifying the particular +work quoted, or giving any reference whereby the +passage could be turned up) is undoubtedly the reason +why many of the quotations are not verbally exact. +Even so, however, they are generally adequate for the +purpose for which they are adduced, that is, they usually +contain the word for which they are quoted, and the +context is more or less accurately rendered. But in some +cases it is otherwise: Johnson's memory played him +false, and he quotes a passage for a word that it does +not actually contain. As an example, under <i>Distilment</i> +he correctly quotes from <i>Hamlet</i>, ‘And in the porches +of mine ears did pour the leperous distilment.’ But +when he reached <i>Instilment</i>, his memory became vague, +and forgetting that he had already quoted the passage +under <i>Distilment</i>, he quoted it again as ‘the leperous +instilment’—a reading which does not exist in any text<!--Pg040--> +of Shakspere, and was a mere temporary hallucination +of memory. There are some other curious mistakes, +which must, I suppose, have crept in either in the +course of transcription or of printing. As specimens +I mention two, because they have unfortunately perverted +ordinary usage. The two words <i>Coco</i> and +<i>Cocoa</i>—the former a Portuguese word<span class="fnmark"><a href="#fntext12" name="fnmark12" id="fnmark12">[12]</a></span>, naming the +<i>coco-nut</i>, the fruit of a palm-tree; the latter a latinized +form of <i>Cacao</i>, the Aztec name of a Central American +shrub, whence we have cocoa and chocolate—were +always distinguished down to Johnson's time, and +were in fact distinguished by Johnson himself in +his own writings. His account of these in the +Dictionary is quoted from Miller's <i>Gardener's Dictionary</i> +and Hill's <i>Materia Medica</i>, in which the +former is spelt <i>coco</i> and the latter <i>cacao</i> and <i>cocoa</i>. +But in Johnson's Dictionary the two words are +by some accident run together under the heading +<i>cocoa</i>, with the disastrous result that modern vulgar +usage mixes the two up, spells the <i>coco-nut</i>, ‘cocoa-’ +as if it were <i>co-cō-a</i>, and on the other hand pronounces +<i>cocōa</i>, the cacāo-bean and the beverage, as if it were +<i>coco</i>. The word <i>dispatch</i>, from It. <i>dispaccio</i>, had been +in English use for some 250 years when Johnson's +Dictionary appeared, and had been correctly spelt by +everybody (that is by everybody but the illiterate) with +<i>dis-</i>. This was Johnson's own spelling both before +and after he published the dictionary, as may be seen<!--Pg041--> +in his <i>Letters</i> edited by Dr. G. Birkbeck Hill<span class="fnmark"><a href="#fntext13" name="fnmark13" id="fnmark13">[13]</a></span>. It was +also the spelling of all the writers whom Johnson +quoted. But by some inexplicable error, the word got +into the dictionary as <i>despatch</i>, and this spelling was +even substituted in most of the quotations. I have not +found that a single writer followed this erroneous +spelling in the eighteenth century: Nelson, Wellesley, +Wellington, and all our commanders and diplomatists +wrote <i>Dispatches</i>; but since about 1820, the filtering +down of the influence of Johnson's Dictionary has +caused this erroneous spelling <i>despatch</i> to become +generally known and to be looked upon as authoritative; +so that at the present time about half our +newspapers give the erroneous form, to which, more +larmentably, the Post Office, after long retaining the +correct official tradition, recently capitulated.</p> + +<p>But despite small blemishes<span class="fnmark"><a href="#fntext14" name="fnmark14" id="fnmark14">[14]</a></span>, the dictionary was a +marvellous piece of work to accomplish in eight and +a half years; and it is quite certain that, if all the +quotations had had to be verified and furnished with<!--Pg042--> +exact references, a much longer time, or the employment +of much more collaboration, would have been +required. With much antecedent preparation, with +much skilled co-operation, and with strenuous effort, +it took more than nine years to produce the first +three letters of the alphabet of the Oxford New +English Dictionary.</p> + +<p>Johnson's great work raised English lexicography +altogether to a higher level. In his hands it became +a department of literature. The value of the Dictionary +was recognized from the first by men of letters; a +second edition was called for the same year. But it +hardly became a popular work, or even a work of +popular fame, before the present century. For forty +years after its first publication editions of Bailey followed +each other as rapidly as ever; numerous new +dictionaries of the size and character of Bailey, often +largely indebted to Johnson's definitions, appeared. +But the only new feature introduced into lexicography +between 1755 and the end of the century was the indication +of the Orthoepy or Pronunciation. From Bailey +onward, and by Johnson himself, the place of the stress-accent +had been marked, but no attempt had been +made to show how such a group of letters, for +example, as <i>colonel</i>, or <i>enough</i>, or <i>phthisical</i>, +was actually pronounced; or, to use modern phraseology, to tell +what the <i>living word</i> itself was, as distinguished +from its written symbol. This feature, so obviously +important in a language of which the spelling had +ceased to be phonetic, was added by Dr. William +Kenrick in his ‘New Dictionary’ of 1773, a little later in<!--Pg043--> +1775 by William Perry, in 1780 by Thomas Sheridan, +and especially in 1791 by John Walker, whose authority +long remained as supreme in the domain of pronunciation, +as that of Dr. Johnson in definition and +illustration; so that popular dictionaries of the first +half of the present century commonly claimed to be +abridgements of ‘Johnson's Dictionary, with, the Pronunciation +on the basis of Walker.’</p> + +<p>From the first quarter of the nineteenth century, the +lexicographical supremacy of Johnson's Dictionary was +undisputed, and eminent students of the language +busied themselves in trying, not to supersede it, but +to supplement and perfect it. Numerous supplements, +containing additional words, senses, and quotations, +were published; in 1818 a new edition, embracing +many such accessions, was prepared by the learned +Archdeacon Todd, and ‘Todd's Johnson’ continues +to be an esteemed work to our own day. But only +two independent contributions to the development of +lexicography were made in the earlier half of the +nineteenth century. These were the American work +of Noah Webster, and the English work of Dr. Charles +Richardson.</p> + +<p>Webster was a great man, a born definer of words; +he was fired with the idea that America ought to +have a dictionary of its own form of English, independent +of British usage, and he produced a work +of great originality and value. Unfortunately, like +many other clever men, he had the notion that +derivations can be elaborated from one's own consciousness +as well as definitions, and he included in<!--Pg044--> +his work so-called ‘etymologies’ of this sort. But +Etymology is simply Word-history, and Word-history, +like all other history, is a record of the <i>facts</i> which +<i>did</i> happen, not a fabric of conjectures as to what +may have happened. In the later editions of Webster, +these ‘derivations’ have been cleared out <i>en masse</i>, +and the etymology placed in the hands of men abreast +of the science of the time; and the last edition of +Webster, the <i>International</i>, is perhaps the best of +one-volume dictionaries.</p> + +<p>Richardson started on a new track altogether. Observing +how much light was shed on the meaning +of words by Johnson's quotations, he was impressed +with the notion that, in a dictionary, definitions are +unnecessary, that quotations alone are sufficient; and +he proceeded to carry this into effect by making +a dictionary without definitions or explanations of +meaning, or at least with the merest rudiments of +them, but illustrating each group of words by a large +series of quotations. In the collection of these he +displayed immense research. Going far beyond the +limits of Dr. Johnson, he quoted from authors back to +the year 1300, and probably for the first time made +Chaucer and Gower and Piers Ploughman living +names to many readers. And his special notion was +quite correct <i>in theory</i>. Quotations <i>will</i> tell the full +meaning of a word, <i>if one has enough of them</i>; but +it takes a great many to be enough, and it takes +a reader a long time to read and weigh all the +quotations, and to deduce from them the meanings +which might be put before him in a line or two.<!--Pg045--> +As a fact, while Richardson's notion was correct in +theory, mundane conditions of space and time rendered +it humanly impracticable. Nevertheless, the mass of +quotations, most of them with exact references, collected +by him, and printed under the word-groups +which they illustrated, was a service never to be +undervalued or forgotten, and his work, ‘A New +Dictionary of the English Language ... Illustrated +by Quotations from the best Authors’ by Charles +Richardson, LL.D., 1836–7, still continues to be +a valuable repertory of illustrations.</p> + +<p>Such was the position of English lexicography +in the middle of the nineteenth century, when the +late Dr. Trench, then Dean of Westminster, who +had already written several esteemed works on the +English language and the history of words, read +two papers before the Philological Society in London +‘On some Deficiencies in existing English Dictionaries,’ +in which, while speaking with much appreciation of +the labours of Dr. Johnson and his successors, he +declared that these labours yet fell far short of +giving us the ideal English Dictionary. Especially, +he pointed out that for the <i>history</i> of words and +families of words, and for the changes of form and +sense which words had historically passed through, +they gave hardly any help whatever. No one could +find out from all the dictionaries extant how long +any particular word had been in the language, which +of the many senses in which many words were used +was the original, or how or when these many senses +had been developed; nor, in the case of words<!--Pg046--> +described as <i>obsolete</i>, were we told <i>when</i> they became +obsolete or by whom they were last used. He +pointed out also that the obsolete and the rarer +words of the language had never been completely +collected; that thousands of words current in the +literature of the past three centuries had escaped the +diligence of Johnson and all his supplementers; that, +indeed, the collection of the requisite material for +a complete dictionary could not be compassed by +any one man, however long-lived and however diligent, +but must be the work of many collaborators who +would undertake systematically to read and to extract +English literature. He called upon the Philological +Society, therefore, as the only body in England then +interesting itself in the language, to undertake the +collection of materials to complete the work already +done by Bailey, Johnson, Todd, Webster, Richardson, +and others, and to prepare a supplement to all the +dictionaries, which should register all omitted words +and senses, and supply all the historical information +in which these works were lacking, and, above all, +should give quotations illustrating the first and last +appearance, and every notable point in the life-history +of every word.</p> + +<p>From this impulse arose the movement which, +widened and directed by much practical experience, has +culminated in the preparation of the Oxford English +Dictionary, ‘A new English Dictionary on Historical +Principles, founded mainly on the materials collected +by the Philological Society.’ This dictionary superadds +to all the features that have been successively<!--Pg047--> +evolved by the long chain of workers, the historical +information which Dr. Trench desiderated. It seeks +not merely to record every word that has been +used in the language for the last 800 years, with its +written form and signification, and the pronunciation +of the current words, but to furnish a biography of +each word, giving as nearly as possible the date of its +birth or first known appearance, and, in the case of +an obsolete word or sense, of its last appearance, the +source from which it was actually derived, the form +and sense with which it entered the language or is +first found in it, and the successive changes of form +and developments of sense which it has since undergone. +All these particulars are derived from historical +research; they are an induction of facts gathered by +the widest investigation of the written monuments of +the language. For the purposes of this historical +illustration more than five millions of extracts have +been made, by two thousand volunteer Readers, +from innumerable books, representing the English +literature of all ages, and from numerous documentary +records. From these, and the further researches +for which they provide a starting-point, the history of +each word is deduced and exhibited.</p> + +<p>Since the Philological Society's scheme was propounded, +several large dictionaries have been compiled, +adopting one or more of Archbishop Trench's suggestions, +and thus showing some of the minor features +of this dictionary. They have collected some of the +rare and obsolete words and senses of the past three +centuries; they have attained to greater fullness and<!--Pg048--> +exactness in exhibiting the current uses of words, +and especially of the many modern words which the +progress of physical science has called into being. +But they leave the <i>history</i> of the words themselves +where it was when Dr. Trench pointed out the +deficiencies of existing dictionaries. And their literary +illustrations of the older words are, in too many cases, +those of Dr. Johnson, copied from dictionary to dictionary +without examination or verification, and, what +is more important, without acknowledgement, so that +the reader has no warning that a given quotation is +merely second-or third-hand, and, therefore, to be +accepted with qualification<span class="fnmark"><a href="#fntext15" name="fnmark15" id="fnmark15">[15]</a></span>. The quotations in the +New English Dictionary, on the other hand, have been +supplied afresh by its army of volunteer Readers; or, +when for any reason one is adopted from a preceding +dictionary without verification, the fact is stated, both +as an acknowledgement of others' work, and as a +warning to the reader that it is given on intermediate +authority.</p> + +<p>Original work, patient induction of facts, minute +verification of evidence, are slow processes, and a work +so characterized cannot be put together with scissors +and paste, or run off with the speed of the copyist. All +the great dictionaries of the modern languages have +taken a long time to make; but the speed with which<!--Pg049--> +the New English Dictionary has now advanced nearly +to its half-way point can advantageously claim comparison +with the progress of any other great dictionary, +even when this falls far behind in historical and +inductive character.<span class="fnmark"><a href="#fntext16" name="fnmark16" id="fnmark16">[16]</a></span> Be the speed what it may, +however, there is the consideration that the work +thus done is done once for all; the structure now +reared will have to be added to, continued, and +extended with time, but it will remain, it is believed, +the great body of fact on which all future work will +be built. It is never possible to forecast the needs +and notions of those who shall come after us; but with +our present knowledge it is not easy to conceive +what new feature can now be added to English +Lexicography. At any rate, it can be maintained that +in the Oxford Dictionary, permeated as it is through +and through with the scientific method of the century, +Lexicography has for the present reached its supreme +development.</p> + +<!--Pg050--> + +<p>In the course of this lecture, it has been needful +to give so many details as to individual works, that +my audience may at times have failed ‘to see the wood +for the trees,’ and may have lost the clue of the lexicographical +evolution. Let me then in conclusion +recapitulate the stages which have been already indicated. +These are: the glossing of difficult words in +Latin manuscripts by easier Latin, and at length by +English words; the collection of the English glosses +into Glossaries, and the elaboration of Latin-English +Vocabularies; the later formation of English-Latin +Vocabularies; the production of Dictionaries of +English and another modern language; the compilation +of Glossaries and Dictionaries of ‘hard’ English +words; the extension of these by Bailey, for etymological +purposes, to include words in general; the +idea of a Standard Dictionary, and its realization by +Dr. Johnson with illustrative quotations; the notion +that a Dictionary should also show the pronunciation +of the living word; the extension of the function of +quotations by Richardson; the idea that the Dictionary +should be a biography of every word, and should set +forth every fact connected with its origin, history, and +use, on a strictly historical method. These stages +coincide necessarily with stages of our national and +literary history; the first two were already reached +before the Norman Conquest; the third followed upon +the recognition of English as the official language of +the nation, and its employment by illustrious Middle +English writers. The Dictionaries of the modern +languages were necessitated first by the fact that<!--Pg051--> +French had at length ceased to be the living tongue +of any class of Englishmen, and secondly by the other +fact that the rise of the modern languages and increasing +intercourse with the Continent made Latin no longer +sufficient as a common medium of international communication. +The consequences of the Renascence +and of the New Learning of the sixteenth century +appear in the need for the Dictionaries of Hard Words +at the beginning of the seventeenth; the literary polish +of the age of Anne begat the yearning for a standard +dictionary, and inspired the work of Johnson; the +scientific and historical spirit of the nineteenth century +has at once called for and rendered possible the +Oxford English Dictionary. Thus the evolution of +English Lexicography has followed with no faltering +steps the evolution of English History and the development +of English Literature.</p> + +<h2>FOOTNOTES:</h2> + +<p class="fntext"><span class="fnmark"><a href="#fnmark1" name="fntext1" id="fntext1">[1]</a></span> Thus the first six Latin words in A glossed are <i>apodixen</i>, <i>amineæ</i>, +<i>amites</i>, <i>arcontus</i>, <i>axungia</i>; the last six are <i>arbusta</i>, +<i>anser</i>, <i>affricus</i>, +<i>atticus</i>, <i>auiaria</i>, <i>avena</i>; mostly ‘hard’ Latin it will be perceived. The +Erfurt Glossary is, to a great extent, a duplicate of the Epinal.</p> + +<p class="fntext"><span class="fnmark"><a href="#fnmark2" name="fntext2" id="fntext2">[2]</a></span> Thus the first five Latin entries in <i>ab-</i> are <i>abminiculum</i>, +<i>abelena</i>, <i>abiecit</i>, <i>absida</i>, <i>abies</i>, and the last five +<i>aboleri</i>, <i>ab borea</i>, +<i>abiles</i>, <i>aborsus</i>, <i>absorduum</i>. To find whether a wanted word in <i>ab-</i> +occurs in this glossary, it was necessary to look through more than two +columns containing ninety-five entries.</p> + +<p class="fntext"><span class="fnmark"><a href="#fnmark3" name="fntext3" id="fntext3">[3]</a></span> An important collection of these early beginnings of lexicography in +England was made so long ago as 1857, by the late distinguished +antiquary Thomas Wright, and published as the first volume of a Library +of National Antiquities. A new edition of this with sundry emendations +and additions was prepared and published in 1884 by Professor R.F. +Wülcker of Leipzig, and the collection is now generally referred to by +scholars in German fashion under the designation of Wright-Wülcker.</p> + +<p class="fntext"><span class="fnmark"><a href="#fnmark4" name="fntext4" id="fntext4">[4]</a></span> This is the primary reason why in Middle and Modern English, unlike +what is found in German and Dutch, the terms of culture, art, science, +and philosophy, are of French or, through French, of Latin origin. The +corresponding Old English terms were forgotten during the age of +illiteracy, and when, generations later, the speaker of English came +again to deal with such subjects, he had to do like Layamon, when he +knew no longer <i>tungol-crœft</i>, and could refer to it only as ‘the +craft ihote <i>astronomie</i> in other kunnes speche.’</p> + +<p class="fntext"><span class="fnmark"><a href="#fnmark5" name="fntext5" id="fntext5">[5]</a></span> Also <i>Medulla Grammaticae</i>, or usually <i>Grammatice</i>.</p> + +<p class="fntext"><span class="fnmark"><a href="#fnmark6" name="fntext6" id="fntext6">[6]</a></span> At the end is an alphabetical list of adjectives; extending from +<i>lf</i>. 79<i>a</i>, col. 2, to 83<i>a</i>, foot.</p> + +<p class="fntext"><span class="fnmark"><a href="#fnmark7" name="fntext7" id="fntext7">[7]</a></span> It must however be mentioned that the second dictionary of English +and another modern tongue was appropriately ‘A Dictionary in Englyshe +and Welshe, moche necessary to all suche Welshemen as wil spedlye learne +the englyshe tongue, thought vnto the kynges maiestie very mete to be +sette forth to the vse of his graces subiectes in Wales, ... by Wyllyam +Salesbury.’ The colophon is ‘Imprynted at London in Foster Lane, by me +John Waley. 1547.’</p> + +<p class="fntext"><span class="fnmark"><a href="#fnmark8" name="fntext8" id="fntext8">[8]</a></span> In the Dedication he says, ‘Which worke, long ago for the most part, +was gathered by me, but lately augmented by my sonne Thomas, who now is +Schoolemaister in London.’</p> + +<p class="fntext"><span class="fnmark"><a href="#fnmark9" name="fntext9" id="fntext9">[9]</a></span> ‘To the right honourable, worshipfull, vertuous, & godlie Ladies, +the Lady Hastings, the Lady Dudley, the Lady Mountague, the Ladie +Wingfield, and the Lady Leigh, his Christian friends, <i>R.C.</i> wisheth +great prosperitie in this life, with increase of grace, and peace from +GOD our Father, through Iesus Christ our Lord and onely Sauiour.’ (A 2.)</p> + +<p class="fntext"><span class="fnmark"><a href="#fnmark10" name="fntext10" id="fntext10">[10]</a></span> His explanations of such words were curt enough: ‘<i>Cat</i>, a Creature +well known’; ‘<i>Horse</i>, a Beast well known’; ‘<i>Man</i>, a Creature endued +with Reason.’</p> + +<p class="fntext"><span class="fnmark"><a href="#fnmark11" name="fntext11" id="fntext11">[11]</a></span> ‘An interleaved copy of Bailey's dictionary in folio he made the +repository of the several articles.’ <i>Works of J.</i>, 1787, I. 175.</p> + +<p class="fntext"><span class="fnmark"><a href="#fnmark12" name="fntext12" id="fntext12">[12]</a></span> Pg. <i>coco</i>, a grinning mask, applied to the coco-nut because of the +three holes and central protuberance at its apex, suggesting two eyes, a +mouth, and nose.</p> + +<p class="fntext"><span class="fnmark"><a href="#fnmark13" name="fntext13" id="fntext13">[13]</a></span> The following are examples of his own practice: <i>The Rambler</i> +(1751), No. 153, par. 3, ‘I was in my eighteenth year dispatched to the +university.’ <i>Ibid.</i>, No. 161, par. 4, ‘I ... soon dispatched a bargain +on the usual terms.’ <i>Letter to Mrs. Thrale</i>, May 6, 1776, ‘We +dispatched our journey very peaceably.’</p> + +<p class="fntext"><span class="fnmark"><a href="#fnmark14" name="fntext14" id="fntext14">[14]</a></span> Among such must be reckoned the treatment of words in the +explanation of which Johnson showed political or personal animus or +whimsical humour, as in the well-known cases of <i>whig</i>, <i>tory</i>, <i>excise</i>, +<i>pension</i>, <i>pensioner</i>, <i>oats</i>, <i>Grub-street</i>, +<i>lexicographer</i> (see Boswell's +<i>Johnson</i>, ed. Birkbeck Hill, i. 294); although it must be admitted that +these have come to be among the famous spots of the Dictionary, and have +given gentle amusement to thousands, to whom it has been a delight to +see ‘human nature’ too strong for lexicographic decorum.</p> + +<p class="fntext"><span class="fnmark"><a href="#fnmark15" name="fntext15" id="fntext15">[15]</a></span> In some cases, long Lists of the Authors, from whose works ‘the +illustrative quotations have been selected,’ are given, without the +statement that many of those quotations have not actually been selected +from the authors and works named, but have merely been annexed from +Johnson or one of his supplementers.</p> + +<p class="fntext"><span class="fnmark"><a href="#fnmark16" name="fntext16" id="fntext16">[16]</a></span> The famous <i>Deutsches Wörterbuch</i> of Jacob and Wilhelm Grimm, after +many years of preparation, began to be printed in 1852; Jacob Grimm +himself died in 1863, in the middle of the letter F; the work is +expected to reach the end of S by the close of the century. The great +<i>Woordenboek der Nederlandsche Taal</i> was commenced in 1852; its first +volume, <i>A–Ajuin</i>, was published in 1882, and it is not yet quite +half-finished. Of the new edition of the <i>Vocabolario della Crusca</i>, +which is to a certain extent on historical principles, Vol. I, +containing A, was published in 1863, and Vol. VIII, completing I, in +1899; at least twenty-five more years will be required to reach Z. None +of these works embraces so long a period of the language, or is so +strictly historical in method, as the New English Dictionary. Rather are +they, like Littré's great <i>Dictionnaire de la Langue Française</i>, +Dictionaries of the modern language, with the current words more or less +historically treated.</p> + +<div>*** END OF THE PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK 11694 ***</div> +</body> +</html> diff --git a/LICENSE.txt b/LICENSE.txt new file mode 100644 index 0000000..6312041 --- /dev/null +++ b/LICENSE.txt @@ -0,0 +1,11 @@ +This eBook, including all associated images, markup, improvements, +metadata, and any other content or labor, has been confirmed to be +in the PUBLIC DOMAIN IN THE UNITED STATES. + +Procedures for determining public domain status are described in +the "Copyright How-To" at https://www.gutenberg.org. + +No investigation has been made concerning possible copyrights in +jurisdictions other than the United States. Anyone seeking to utilize +this eBook outside of the United States should confirm copyright +status under the laws that apply to them. diff --git a/README.md b/README.md new file mode 100644 index 0000000..33f9bff --- /dev/null +++ b/README.md @@ -0,0 +1,2 @@ +Project Gutenberg (https://www.gutenberg.org) public repository for +eBook #11694 (https://www.gutenberg.org/ebooks/11694) diff --git a/old/11694-8.txt b/old/11694-8.txt new file mode 100644 index 0000000..f8a7b92 --- /dev/null +++ b/old/11694-8.txt @@ -0,0 +1,1683 @@ +The Project Gutenberg EBook of The evolution of English lexicography +by James Augustus Henry Murray + +This eBook is for the use of anyone anywhere at no cost and with +almost no restrictions whatsoever. You may copy it, give it away or +re-use it under the terms of the Project Gutenberg License included +with this eBook or online at www.gutenberg.org + + +Title: The evolution of English lexicography + +Author: James Augustus Henry Murray + +Release Date: March 24, 2004 [EBook #11694] + +Language: English + +Character set encoding: ISO-8859-1 + +*** START OF THIS PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK EVOLUTION OF ENGLISH LEXICOGRAPHY *** + + + + +Produced by Brendan Lane and the Online Distributed Proofreading Team. + + + + +THE ROMANES LECTURE +1900 + +The Evolution of English Lexicography + +BY JAMES A.H. MURRAY +M.A., LL.D., D.C.L., PH.D. + +DELIVERED IN THE SHELDONIAN THEATRE, OXFORD, JUNE 22, 1900 + + + + +THE EVOLUTION OF ENGLISH LEXICOGRAPHY + + +When the 'Act to facilitate the provision of Allotments for the +Labouring Classes' was before the House of Commons in 1887, a +well-known member for a northern constituency asked the Minister who +had charge of the measure for a definition of the term _allotment_, +which occurred so often in the Bill. The Minister somewhat brusquely +told his interrogator to 'look in the Dictionary,' at which there was, +according to the newspapers, 'a laugh.' The member warmly protested +that, being called upon to consider a measure dealing with things +therein called 'Allotments', a term not known to English Law, nor +explained in the Bill itself, he had a right to ask for a definition. +But the only answer he received was 'Johnson's Dictionary! Johnson's +Dictionary!' at which, according to the newspapers, the House gave +'another laugh,' and the interrogator subsided. The real humour of the +situation, which was unfortunately lost upon the House of Commons, +was, that as agricultural allotments had not been thought of in the +days of Dr. Johnson, no explanation of the term in this use is to be +found in Johnson's Dictionary; as, however, this happened to be +unknown, alike to the questioner and to the House, the former missed a +chance of 'scoring' brilliantly, and the House the chance of a third +laugh, this time at the expense of the Minister. But the replies of +the latter are typical of the notions of a large number of persons, +who habitually speak of 'the Dictionary,' just as they do of 'the +Bible,' or 'the Prayer-book,' or 'the Psalms'; and who, if pressed as +to the authorship of these works, would certainly say that 'the +Psalms' were composed by David, and 'the Dictionary' by Dr. Johnson. + +I have met persons of intelligence who supposed that if Dr. Johnson +was not the sole author of 'the Dictionary'--a notion which, in view +of the 'pushfulness' wherewith, in recent times, Dictionaries, +American and other, have been pressed upon public notice, is now not +so easily tenable--he was, at least, the 'original author,' from whose +capacious brain that work first emanated. Whereas, in truth, Dr. +Johnson had been preceded by scores of workers, each of whom had added +his stone or stones to the lexicographic cairn, which had already +risen to goodly proportions when Johnson made to it his own splendid +contribution. + +For, the English Dictionary, like the English Constitution, is the +creation of no one man, and of no one age; it is a growth that has +slowly developed itself adown the ages. Its beginnings lie far back in +times almost prehistoric. And these beginnings themselves, although +the English Dictionary of to-day is lineally developed from them, were +neither Dictionaries, nor even English. As to their language, they +were in the first place and principally Latin: as to their substance, +they consisted, in large part at least, of _glosses_. They were Latin, +because at the time to which we refer, the seventh and eighth +centuries of our era, Latin was in Western Europe the only language of +books, the learning of Latin the portal to all learning. And they were +_glosses_ in this wise: the possessor of a Latin book, or the member +of a religious community which were the fortunate possessors of +half-a-dozen books, in his ordinary reading of this literature, here +and there came across a difficult word which lay outside the familiar +Latin vocabulary. When he had ascertained the meaning of this, he +often, as a help to his own memory, and a friendly service to those +who might handle the book after him, wrote the meaning over the word +in the original text, in a smaller hand, sometimes in easier Latin, +sometimes, if he knew no Latin equivalent, in a word of his own +vernacular. Such an explanatory word written over a word of the text +is a _gloss_. Nearly all the Latin MSS. of religious or practical +treatises, that have come down to us from the Middle Ages, contain +examples of such glosses, sometimes few, sometimes many. It may +naturally be supposed that this glossing of MSS. began in Celtic and +Teutonic, rather than in Romanic lands. In the latter, the old Latin +was not yet so dead, nor the vulgar idioms that were growing out of +it, as yet so distinct from it, as to render the glossing of the one +by the other needful. The relation of Latin to, say, the Romanic of +Provence, was like that of literary English to Lancashire or Somerset +dialect; no one thinks of glossing a literary English book by +Somersetshire word-forms; for, if he can read at all, it is the +literary English that he does read. So if the monk of Burgundy or +Provence could read at all, it was the Book-Latin that he could and +did read. But, to the Teuton or the Celt, Latin was an entirely +foreign tongue, the meaning of whose words he could not guess by any +likeness to his own; by him Latin had been acquired by slow and +painful labour, and to him the gloss was an important aid. To the +modern philologist, Teutonic or Celtic, these glosses are very +precious; they have preserved for us a large number of Old English, +Old Irish, Old German words that occur nowhere else, and which, but +for the work of the old glossators, would have been lost for ever. No +inconsiderable portion of the oldest English vocabulary has been +recovered entirely from these interlinear glosses; and we may +anticipate important additions to that vocabulary when Professor +Napier gives us the volume in which he has been gathering up all the +unpublished glosses that yet remain in MSS. + +In process of time it occurred to some industrious reader that it +would be a useful exercise of his industry, to collect out of all the +manuscripts to which he had access, all the glosses that they +contained, and combine them in a list. In this compact form they could +be learned by heart, thus extending the vocabulary at his command, and +making him independent of the interlinear glosses, and they could also +be used in the school-teaching of pupils and neophytes, so as sensibly +to enlarge their stock of Latin words and phrases. A collection of +glosses, thus copied out and thrown together into a single list, +constituted a _Glossarium_ or _Glossary_; it was the remote precursor +of the seventeenth-century 'Table Alphabetical,' or 'Expositor of Hard +Words.' + +Such was one of the fountain-heads of English lexicography; the other +is to be found in the fact that in those distant days, as in our own, +the learning of Latin was the acquisition of a foreign tongue which +involved the learning of a grammar and of a vocabulary. Both grammar +and vocables were probably in the main communicated by oral teaching, +by the living voice of the master, and were handed down by oral +tradition from generation to generation. The stock of vocables was +acquired by committing to memory classified lists of words; lists of +names of parts of the body, lists of the names of domestic animals, of +wild beasts, of fishes, of trees, of heavenly bodies, of geographical +features, of names of relationship and kindred, of ranks and orders of +men, of names of trades, of tools, of arms, of articles of clothing, +of church furniture, of diseases, of virtues and vices, and so on. +Such lists of vocables, with their meaning in the vulgar tongue, were +also at times committed to paper or parchment leaves, and a collection +of these constituted a _Vocabularium_ or _Vocabulary_. + +In their practical use the Vocabulary and the Glossary fulfilled +similar offices; and so they were often combined; the possessor of a +Vocabulary enlarged it by the addition of a Glossary, which he or some +one before him had copied out and collected from the glossed +manuscripts of his bibliotheca. He extended it by copying into it +vocabularies and glossaries borrowed from other scholars; he lent his +own collection to be similarly copied by others. Several such +collections exist formed far back in Old English times, the composite +character of which, partly glossary, partly vocabulary, reveals itself +upon even a cursory examination. + +As these manuscript lists came to be copied and re-copied, it was seen +that their usefulness would be increased by putting the words and +phrases into alphabetical order, whereby a particular word could be +more readily found than by looking for it in a promiscuous list of +some hundreds or thousands of words. The first step was to bring +together all the words having the same first letter. The copyist +instead of transcribing the glossary right on as it stood, extracted +first all the words beginning with A; then he went through it again +picking out all the words beginning with B; then a third time for +those with C, and so on with D, E, and the rest, till he had +transcribed the whole, and his copy was no longer in the fortuitous +disorder of the original, but in what we call _first-letter_ order. + +A still later scribe making a copy of this vocabulary, or possibly +combining two or three lists already in first-letter order, carried +the alphabetical arrangement one stage further; instead of +transcribing the A-words as they stood, he went through them, picking +out first those that began with Aa-, then those in Ab-, then those in +Ac-, and so on, to Az. Then he did the same with the B-words, picking +out first all in Ba-, then Be-, Bi-, Bl-, Bo-, Br-, Bu-, By-; and so +exhausting the B-words. Thus, at length, in this second recension, the +Vocabulary stood, not yet completely alphabetical, but alphabetized as +far as the second letter of each word. + +All these stages can actually be seen in four of the most ancient +glossaries of English origin that have come down to us, known +respectively, from the libraries to which they now belong, as the +Leiden, the Epinal, the Erfurt, and the Corpus (the last at Corpus +Christi College, Cambridge). The Leiden Glossary represents the +earliest stage of such a work, being really, in the main, a collection +of smaller glossaries, or rather sets of glosses, each set entered +under the name of the treatise from which it was extracted, the words +in each being left in the order in which they happened to come in the +treatise or work, without any further arrangement, alphabetical or +other. It appears also to incorporate in a final section some small +earlier vocabularies or lists of names of animals and other classes of +things. In order to discover whether any particular word occurs in +this glossary, the whole work from beginning to end must be looked +through. The first advance upon this is seen in the Epinal Glossary, +which uses part at least of the materials of the Leiden, incorporating +with them many others. This glossary has advanced to _first-letter_ +order: all the A-words come together, followed by all the B-words, and +so on to Z, but there is no further arrangement under the individual +letters[1]. There are nearly fourteen columns of words beginning with +A, containing each about forty entries; the whole of these 550 entries +must be looked through to see if a given word occurs in this glossary. +The third stage is represented by the Corpus Glossary, which contains +the materials of its predecessors, and a great deal more, and in which +the alphabetical arrangement has been carried as far as the second +letter of each word: thus the first ninety-five words explained begin +with Ab-, and the next seventy-eight with Ac-, and so on, but the +alphabetization goes no further[2]; the glossary is in _second-letter_ +order. In at least one glossary of the tenth century, contained in a +MS. of the British Museum (Harl. 3376), the alphabetical arrangement +has been carried as far as the third letter, beyond which point it +does not appear to have advanced. + +The MS. of the Corpus Glossary dates to the early part of the eighth +century; the Epinal and Erfurt--although the MS. copies that have come +down to us are not older, or not so old--must from their nature go +back as glossaries to a still earlier date, and the Leiden to an +earlier still; so that we carry back these beginnings of lexicography +in England to a time somewhere between 600 and 700 A.D., and probably +to an age not long posterior to the introduction of Christianity in +the south of England at the end of the sixth century. Many more +vocabularies were compiled between these early dates and the eleventh +century; and it is noteworthy that those ancient glossaries and +vocabularies not only became fuller and more orderly as time advanced, +but they also became more _English_. For, as I have already mentioned, +the primary purpose of the glosses was to explain difficult _Latin_ +words; this was done at first, whenever possible, by easier Latin +words; apparently, only when none such were known, was the explanation +given in the vernacular, in Old English. In the Epinal Glossary the +English words are thus relatively few. In the first page they number +thirty out of 117, and in some pages they do not amount to half that +number. In the Corpus Glossary they have become proportionally more +numerous; and in the glossaries that follow, the Latin explanations +are more and more eliminated and replaced by English ones, until the +vocabularies of the tenth and eleventh centuries, whether arranged +alphabetically or under classified headings, are truly Latin-English: +every Latin word given is explained by an English one; and we see +clearly that a new aim had gradually evolved itself; the object was no +longer to explain difficult Latin words, but to give the English +equivalents of as many words as possible, and thus practically to +provide a Latin Dictionary for the use of Englishmen[3]. + +Learning and literature, science and art, had attained to fair +proportions in England, and in the Old English tongue, when their +progress was arrested by the Norman Conquest. The Norman Conquest +brought to England law and organization, and welded the country into a +political unity; but it overthrew Old English learning and literary +culture. In literary culture the Normans were about as far behind the +people whom they conquered as the Romans were when they made +themselves masters of Greece; and it was not till some two generations +after the Conquest, that learning and literature regained in England +somewhat of the position which they had occupied two centuries +earlier. And this new literary culture was naturally confined to the +French dialect of the conquerors, which had become the language of +court and castle, of church and law, of chivalry and the chase; while +the rich and cultured tongue of Alfred and Ælfric was left for +generations without literary employment, during which time it lost +nearly all its poetical, philosophical, scientific, and artistic +vocabulary, retaining only the words of common life and everyday +use[4]. And for more than 300 years after the Conquest English +lexicography stood still. Between 1066 and 1400, Wright-Wülcker shows +only two meagre vocabularies, occupying some twenty-four columns of +his volume. One of these, of the twelfth century, is only an echo of +the earlier literary age, a copy of a pre-Conquest glossary, which +some scribe who could still read the classical tongue of the old West +Saxon Court, transliterated into the corrupted forms of his own +generation. The other is a short vocabulary of the Latin and +vernacular names of plants, a species of class-vocabulary of which +there exist several of rather early date. + +But when we reach the end of the fourteenth century, English is once +more in the ascendant. Robert of Gloucester, Robert Mannyng of Brunne, +Dan Michel of Canterbury, and Richard Rolle of Hampole, William +Langland and John Wyclif, John Gower and Geoffrey Chaucer, and many +other authors of less known or entirely unknown name, have written in +the tongue of the people; English has been sanctioned for use in the +courts of law; and, as John of Trevisa tells us, has, since the +'furste moreyn' or Great Pestilence of 1349 (which Mrs. Markham has +taught nineteenth-century historians to call the 'Black Death'), been +introduced into the grammar schools in the translation of Latin +exercises, which boys formerly rendered into French. And under these +new conditions lexicographical activity at once bursts forth with +vigour. Six important vocabularies of the fifteenth century are +printed by Wright-Wülcker, most of them arranged, like the Old English +one of Ælfric, under subject-headings; but one large one, extending to +2,500 words, entirely alphabetical. About the middle of the century, +also, was compiled the famous _Medulla Grammatices_[5], designated, +with some propriety, 'the first Latin-English Dictionary,' the +popularity of which is shown by the many manuscript copies that still +survive; while it formed the basis of the _Ortus (i.e. Hortus) +Vocabulorum_ or first printed Latin-English Dictionary, which issued +from the press of Wynkyn de Worde in 1500, and in many subsequent +editions down to 1533, as well as in an edition by Pynson in 1509. + +But all the glossaries and vocabularies as yet mentioned were +Latin-English; their primary object was not English, but the +elucidation of Latin. A momentous advance was made about 1440, when +Brother Galfridus Grammaticus--Geoffrey the Grammarian--a Dominican +friar of Lynn Episcopi in Norfolk, produced the English-Latin +vocabulary, to which he gave the name of _Promptuarium_ or +_Promptorium Parvulorum_, the Children's Store-room or Repository. + +The _Promptorium_, the name of which has now become a household word +to students of the history of English, is a vocabulary containing some +10,000 words--substantives, adjectives, and verbs--with their Latin +equivalents, which, as edited by Mr. Albert Way for the Camden Society +in 1865, makes a goodly volume. Many manuscript copies of it were made +and circulated, of which six or seven are known to be still in +existence, and after the introduction of printing it passed through +many editions in the presses of Pynson, Wynkyn de Worde, and Julian +Notary. + +Later in the same century, the year 1483 saw the compilation of a +similar, but quite independent work, which its author named the +_Catholicon Anglicum_, that is, the English Catholicon or Universal +treatise, after the name of the celebrated Latin dictionary of the +Middle Ages, the _Catholicon_ or _Summa_ of Johannes de Balbis, or +John of Genoa, made in 1286. The English _Catholicon_ was in itself a +work almost equally valuable with the _Promptorium_; but it appears +never to have attained to the currency of the _Promptorium_, which +appeared as a printed book in 1499, while the _Catholicon_ remained in +two MSS. till printed for the Early English Text Society in 1881. + +The Renascence of Ancient Learning had now reached England, and during +the sixteenth century there were compiled and published many important +Latin-English and English-Latin vocabularies and dictionaries. Among +these special mention must be made of the Dictionary of Sir Thomas +Elyot, Knight, the first work, so far as I know, which took to itself +in English what was destined to be the famous name of DICTIONARY, in +mediaeval Latin, _Dictionarius liber_, or _Dictionarium_, literally a +repertory of _dictiones_, a word originally meaning 'sayings,' but +already by the later Latin grammarians used in the sense of _verba_ or +_vocabula_ 'words.' The early vocabularies and dictionaries had many +names, often quaint and striking; thus one of _c_1420 is entitled the +_Nominale_, or Name-book; mention has already been made of the +_Medulla Grammatices_, or Marrow of Grammar, the _Ortus Vocabulorum_, +or Garden of Words, the _Promptorium Parvulorum_, and the _Catholicon +Anglicum_; later we find the _Manipulus Vocabulorum_, or Handful of +Vocables, the _Alvearie_ or Beehive, the _Abecedarium_, the +_Bibliotheca_, or Library, the _Thesaurus_, or Treasury of Words--what +Old English times would have called the _Word-hord_, the _World of +Words_, the _Table Alphabetical_, the _English Expositor_, the _Ductor +in Linguas_, or Guide to the Tongues, the _Glossographia_, the _New +World of Words_, the _Etymologicum_, the _Gazophylacium_; and it would +have been impossible to predict in the year 1538, when Sir Thomas +Elyot published his 'Dictionary,' that this name would supplant all +the others, and even take the place of the older and better-descended +word _Vocabulary_; much less that _Dictionary_ should become so much a +name to conjure with, as to be applied to works which are not +word-books at all, but reference-books on all manner of subjects, as +Chronology, Geography, Music, Commerce, Manufactures, Chemistry, or +National Biography, arranged in Alphabetical or 'Dictionary order.' +The very phrase, 'Dictionary order,' would in the first half of the +sixteenth century have been unmeaning, for all dictionaries were not +yet alphabetical. There is indeed no other connexion between a +dictionary and alphabetical order, than that of a balance of +convenience. Experience has shown that though an alphabetical order +makes the matter of a dictionary very disjointed, scattering the +terminology of a particular art, science, or subject, all over the +book, and even when related words come together, often putting the +unimportant derivative in front of the important primitive word, it is +yet that by which a word or heading can be found, with least trouble +and exercise of thought. But this experience has been only gradually +acquired; even now the native dictionaries of some Oriental languages +are often not in alphabetical order; in such a language as Chinese, +indeed, there is no alphabetical order in which to place the words, +and they follow each other in the dictionary in a purely arbitrary and +conventional fashion. In English, as we have seen, many of the +vocabularies from the eleventh to the fifteenth century, were arranged +under class-headings according to subject; and, although Sir Thomas +Elyot's Dictionary was actually in alphabetical order, that of J. +Withals, published in 1554, under the title 'A short dictionarie for +young beginners,' and with the colophon 'Thus endeth this Dictionary +very useful for Children, compiled by J. Withals,' reverts to the +older arrangement of subject-classes, as Names of things in the Æther +or skie, the xii Signes, the vii Planets, Tymes, Seasons, Other times +in the yere, the daies of the weeke, the Ayre, the viii windes, the +iiii partes of the worlde, Byrdes, Bees, Flies, and other, the Water, +the Sea, Fishes, a Shippe with other Water vessels, the earth, +Mettales, Serpents, woorms and creepinge beastes, Foure-footed +beastes, &c.[6] + +It is unnecessary in this lecture to recount even the names of the +Latin-English and English-Latin dictionaries of the sixteenth century. +It need only be mentioned that there were six successive and +successively enlarged editions of Sir Thomas Elyot; that the last +three of these were edited by Thomas Cooper, 'Schole-Maister of +Maudlens in Oxford' (the son of an Oxford tradesman, and educated as a +chorister in Magdalen College School, who rose to be Dean of Christ +Church and Vice-Chancellor of the University, and to hold successively +the episcopal sees of Lincoln and Winchester), and that Cooper, in +1565, published his great _Thesaurus Linguæ Romanæ et Britannicæ_, +'opera et industria Thomæ Cooperi Magdalenensis,' founded upon the +great French work of Robert Stephens (Estienne), the learned French +scholar and printer. Of this work Martin Marprelate says in his +_Epistle_ (Arber, p. 42), 'His Lordship of Winchester is a great +Clarke, for he hath translated his Dictionarie, called Cooper's +Dictionarie, verbatim out of Robert Stephanus his _Thesaurus_, and +ill-favoured too, they say!' This was, however, the criticism of an +adversary; Cooper had added to Stephens's work many accessions from +his editions of Sir Thomas Elyot, and other sources; his _Thesaurus_ +was the basis of later Latin-English dictionaries, and traces of it +may still be discovered in the Latin-English dictionaries of to-day. + +Of printed English-Latin works, after the _Promptorium_, one of the +earliest was the _Vulgaria_ of William Herman, Headmaster and Provost +of Eton, printed by Pynson in 1519. This is a _Dictionarium_ or _liber +dictionarius_ in the older sense, for it consists of short _dictiones_ +or sayings, maxims, and remarks, arranged under subject-headings, such +as _De Pietate_, _De Impietate_, _De corporis dotibus_, _De +Valetudinis cura_, _De Hortensibus_, _De Bellicis_, and finally a +heading _Promiscua_. It may therefore be conceived that it is not easy +to find any particular _dictio_. Horman was originally a Cambridge +man; but, according to Wood, he was elected a Fellow of New College, +Oxford, in 1477, the very year in which Caxton printed his first book +in England, and in this connexion it is interesting to find among the +illustrative sentences in the _Vulgaria_, this reference to the new +art (sign. Oij): 'The prynters haue founde a crafte to make bokes by +brasen letters sette in ordre by a frame,' which is thus latinized: +'Chalcographi artem excogitauerunt imprimendi libros qua literæ formis +æreis excudunt.' Of later English-Latin dictionaries two deserve +passing mention: the _Abecedarium_ of Richard Huloet or Howlet, a +native of Wisbech, which appeared in the reign of Edward VI, in 1552, +and the Alvearie of John Baret, Fellow of Trinity College, Cambridge, +published under Elizabeth in 1573. The Abecedarium, although it gives +the Latin equivalents, may be looked upon to some extent as an English +dictionary, for many of the words have an English explanation, as well +as a Latin rendering; thus _Almesse_, or gift of dryncke, meate, or +money, distributed to the poore, _sporta_, _sportula_; _Amyable_, +pleasante, or hauing a good grace, _amabilis_; _Anabaptistes_, a sorte +of heretyques of late tyme in Germanye about the yere of our Lorde God +1524.... _Anabaptistæ_. + +Baret's _Alvearie_ of 1573 has been justly styled 'one of the most +quaint and charming of all the early Dictionaries.' In his 'Prefatory +Address to the Reader' the author tells, in fine Elizabethan prose, +both how his book came into existence, and why he gave it its curious +name:-- + + 'About eighteene yeeres agone, hauing pupils at Cambridge + studious of the Latine tongue, I vsed them often to write + Epistles and Theames together, and dailie to translate + some peece of English into Latine, for the more speedie + attaining of the same. And after we had a little begun, + perceiuing what great trouble it was to come running to + me for euerie worde they missed, knowing then of no other + Dictionarie to helpe vs, but Sir Thomas Eliots Librarie, + which was come out a little before; I appointed them + certaine leaues of the same booke euerie daie to write + the english before the Latin, & likewise to gather a + number of fine phrases out of Cicero, Terence, Cæsar, + Liuie, &c. & to set them vnder seuerall titles, for the + more readie finding them againe at their neede. Thus, + within a yeere or two, they had gathered together a great + volume, which (for the apt similitude betweene the good + Scholers and diligent Bees in gathering their waxe and + honie into their Hiue) I called then their _Aluearie_, + both for a memoriall by whom it was made, and also by + this name to incourage other to the like diligence, for + that they should not see their worthie praise for the + same, vnworthilie drowned in obliuion. Not long after, + diuers of our friends borrowing this our worke which we + had thus contriued & wrought onelie for our owne priuate + vse, often and many waies moued me to put it in print for + the common profet of others, and the publike propagation + of the Latine tongue.' + +But when Baret at length resolved to comply with this suggestion, +there were many difficulties to be overcome, the expense of the work +being not the least:-- + + 'And surelie, had not the right honourable Sir Thomas + Smith knight, principall Secretarie to the Queenes + Maiestie, that noble Theseus of learning, and comfortable + Patrone to all Students, and the right Worshipfull M. + Nowell, Deane of Pawles, manie waies encouraged me in + this wearie worke (the charges were so great, and the + losse of my time so much grieued me) I had neuer bene + able alone to haue wrestled against so manie troubles, + but long ere this had cleane broken off our worke begun, + and cast it by for euer.' + +Between the dates of the _Abecedarium_ and the _Alvearie_, Peter +Levins, Fellow of Magdalen College, Oxford, published, in 1570, the +first essay at an English Riming Dictionary, the _Manipulus +Vocabulorum_, or Handful of Vocables, an original copy of which is in +the Bodleian Library; it was reprinted for the Early English Text +Society in 1867 by Mr. H.B. Wheatley. The English words are arranged +in order of their terminations, and each is furnished with a Latin +equivalent. + +Of all the works which we have yet considered, Latin was an essential +element: whether the object was, as in the glossaries and vocabularies +before the fifteenth century, to explain the Latin words themselves, +or as in the _Promptorium_ and _Catholicon_, the _Abecedarium_ and the +_Alvearie_, and other works of the sixteenth century, to render +English words into Latin. But a new stage of development was marked by +the appearance of dictionaries of English with another modern +language. In 1521, the 'Introductory to write and to pronounce +Frenche,' by Alexander Barclay, author of the 'Ship of Fooles,' was +issued from the press of Robert Coplande; and about 1527 Giles du Guez +or du Wes (anglicized Dewes), French teacher to the Lady Mary, +afterwards Queen Mary, published his 'Introductorie for to lerne to +rede, to pronounce and to speke French trewly.' In addition to +grammatical rules and dialogues, it contains a select vocabulary +English and French. In 1514, Mary Tudor, younger sister of Henry VIII, +became the unwilling bride of Louis XII of France. To initiate the +princess in her husband's tongue, John Palsgrave, a native of London +and graduate of Cambridge, who had subsequently studied in Paris, was +chosen as her tutor, and accompanied her to France. For her use +Palsgrave prepared his celebrated _Esclarcissement de la Langue +Françoyse_, which he subsequently revised and published in 1530, after +his return to England, where he was incorporated M.A. at Oxford. The +_Esclarcissement_ is a famous book, at once grammar and vocabulary, +and may be considered as the earliest dictionary of a modern language, +in French as well as in English. It was reprinted in 1852 at the +expense of the French Government in the series of publications +entitled 'Collection de documents inédits sur l'histoire de France, +publiés par les soins du Ministre de l'Instruction Publique, Deuxième +Série--Histoire des Lettres et des Sciences.' It is a trite saying +that 'they do these things better in France'; but it is, nevertheless, +sometimes true. Amid all the changes of government which France has +seen in modern times, it has never been forgotten that the history of +the French language, and of French letters and French science, is part +of the history of France; the British government has not even now +attained to the standpoint of recognizing this: among the historical +documents published under the direction of the authorities of the +Record Office, there is no series illustrating the history of the +language, the literature, or the science of England. + +Next to French, the continental languages most important to Englishmen +in the sixteenth century, were Italian and Spanish, of both of which, +accordingly, dictionaries were published before the end of the +century[7]. In 1599 Richard Percevall, Gent., published his dictionary +in Spanish and English; and in the same year 'resolute John Florio' +(who in his youth resided in Worcester Place, Oxford, and was +matriculated at Magdalen College in 1581) brought out his +Italian-English Dictionary, the _World of Words_, which he +re-published in a much enlarged form in 1611, with dedication to the +Queen of James I, as _Queen Anna's New World of Words_. This year, +also, Randall Cotgrave published his famous French-English Dictionary, +which afterwards passed through so many editions. In the absence as +yet of any merely English dictionary, the racy English vocabulary of +Florio and Cotgrave is of exceeding value, and has been successfully +employed in illustrating the contemporary language of Shakspere, to +whom Florio, patronized as he was by the Earls of Southampton and +Pembroke, was probably personally known. Thus, the same year which saw +England provided with the version of the Bible which was to be so +intimately identified with the language of the next three centuries, +saw her also furnished with adequate dictionaries of French, Italian, +and Spanish; and, in 1617, a still more ambitious work was +accomplished by John Minsheu in the production of a polyglot +dictionary of English with ten other languages, British or Welsh, Low +Dutch, High Dutch, French, Italian, Spanish, Portuguese, Latin, Greek, +and Hebrew, which he entitled '[Greek: Haegemon eis tas glossas], id +est _Ductor in Linguas_, the Guide into Tongues.' + +But though in these works there is necessarily contained much of the +material of an English dictionary, so that we can from them recover +most of the current vocabulary, no one appears before the end of the +sixteenth century to have felt that Englishmen could want a dictionary +to help them to the knowledge and correct use of their own language. +That language was either an in-born faculty, or it was inhaled with +their native air, or imbibed with their mothers' milk; how could they +need a book to teach them to speak their mother-tongue? To the +scholars of the Renascence the notion would have seemed absurd--as +absurd as it has seemed to some of their descendants in the nineteenth +century, that an English grammar-school or an English university +should trouble itself about such aboriginal products of the English +skull, as English language and literature. But by the end of the +sixteenth century, as by the end of the nineteenth, there was a moving +of the waters: the Renascence of ancient learning had itself brought +into English use thousands of learned words, from Latin, Greek, +Hebrew, Arabic, and other languages, 'ink-horn terms,' as they were +called by Bale and by Puttenham, unknown to, and not to be imbibed +from, mother or grandmother. A work exhibiting the spelling, and +explaining the meaning, of these new-fangle 'hard words' was the felt +want of the day; and the first attempt to supply it marks, on the +whole, the most important point in the evolution of the modern English +Dictionary. + +In 1604, Robert Cawdrey, who had been a schoolmaster at Okeham, and +afterwards at Coventry, published a modest octavo of 120 pages, 5-1/2 +inches by 3-1/2, calling itself _The Table Alphabeticall of Hard +Words_, in which he set forth the proper spelling and meaning of some +3,000 of these learned terms; his work reached a third edition in +1612[8]. In 1616, Dr. John Bullokar, then resident in Chichester, +followed with a work of the same kind and size, named by him _An +English Expositor_, of which numerous editions came out, one as late +as 1684. And in 1623 appeared the work which first assumed the title +of 'The English Dictionarie,' by H.C., Gent. H.C., we learn from the +dedication, was Henry Cockeram, to whom John Ford the dramatist +addressed the following congratulatory lines:-- + + To my industrious friend, the Author of this English Dictionarie, + MR. HENRY COCKRAM OF EXETER. + + Borne in the West? liue there? so far from Court? + From Oxford, Cambridge, London? yet report + (Now in these daies of Eloquence) such change + Of words? vnknown? vntaught? tis new and strange. + Let Gallants therefore skip no more from hence + To Italic, France, Spaine, and with expence + Waste time and faire estates, to learne new fashions + Of complementall phrases, soft temptations + To glorious beggary: Here let them hand + This Booke; here studie, reade, and vnderstand: + Then shall they find varietie at Home, + As curious as at Paris, or at Rome. + For my part I confesse, hadst not thou writ, + I had not beene acquainted with more wit + Than our old English taught; but now I can + Be proud to know I have a Countryman + Hath strugled for a fame, and what is more, + Gain'd it by paths of Art, vntrod before. + The benefit is generall; the crowne + Of praise particular, and thats _thine owne_. + What should I say? thine owne deserts inspire thee, + Twere base to enuie, I must then admire thee. + + A friend and louer of thy paines, + IOHN FORD. + +And a deeply interesting little book is this diminutive ancestor of +the modern English Dictionary, to describe which adequately would take +far more time than the limits of this lecture afford. It is divided +into three parts: Part I contains the hard words with their +explanation in ordinary language; and instructive it is to see what +words were then considered hard and unknown. Many of them certainly +would be so still: as, for example, _abgregate_, 'to lead out of the +flock'; _acersecomick_, 'one whose hair was never cut'; +_adcorporated_, 'married'; _adecastick_, 'one that will do just +howsoever'; _bubulcitate_, 'to cry like a cow-boy'; _collocuplicate_, +'to enrich'--concerning which we wonder who used them, or where +Cockeram found them; but we are surprised to find among these hard +words _abandon_, _abhorre_, _abrupt_, _absurd_, _action_, _activitie_, +and _actresse_, explained as 'a woman doer,' for the stage actress had +not yet appeared. _Blunder_, 'to bestir oneself,' and _Garble_, 'to +clense things from dust,' remind us that the meanings of words are +subject to change. The Second Part contains the ordinary words +'explained' by their hard equivalents, and is intended to teach a +learned style. The plain man or gentlewoman may write a letter in his +or her natural language, and then by turning up the simple words in +the dictionary alter them into their learned equivalents. Thus +'abound' may be altered into _exuperate_, 'too great plenty' into +_uberty_, 'he and I are of one age' into _we are coetaneous_, +'youthful babbling' into _juvenile inaniloquence_--a useful expression +to hurl at an opponent in the Oxford Union. + +The last part is the most entertaining of all: it is headed 'The Third +Part, treating of Gods and Goddesses, Men and Women, Boyes and Maides, +Giants and Diuels, Birds and Beasts, Monsters and Serpents, Wells and +Riuers, Herbes, Stones, Trees, Dogges, Fishes, and the like'; it is a +key to the allusions to classical, historical, mythological, and other +marvellous persons, animals, and things, to be met with in polite +literature. A good example of its contents is the well-known article +on the _Crocodile_:-- + + '_Crocodile_, a beast hatched of an egge, yet some of them + grow to a great bignesse, as 10. 20. or 30. foot in length: + it hath cruell teeth and scaly back, with very sharpe clawes + on his feete: if it see a man afraid of him, it will eagerly + pursue him, but on the contrary, if he be assaulted he wil + shun him. Hauing eaten the body of a man, it will weepe ouer + the head, but in fine eate the head also: thence came the + Prouerb, he shed Crocodile teares, viz., fayned teares.' + +Appreciation of Cockeram's 'Dictionarie' was marked by the numerous +editions through which it passed down as late as 1659. Meanwhile +Thomas Blount, Barrister of the Inner Temple, and correspondent of +Anthony à Wood, was devoting the leisure hours of twenty years to his +'_Glossographia_: or a Dictionary interpreting all such hard words, +whether Hebrew, Greek, Latin,' etc., 'as are now used in our refined +English Tongue,' of which the first edition saw the light in 1656. + +I suppose it is a truism, that the higher position now taken by +English studies, is intimately interwoven with the advances which have +been made during the last quarter of a century in the higher education +of women, and that but for the movement to let women share in the +advantages of a university education, it is doubtful whether the +nineteenth century would have witnessed the establishment of a School +of English Language and Literature at Oxford. In connexion with this +it is a noteworthy fact, that the preparation of these early +seventeenth century English dictionaries was also largely due to a +consideration of the educational wants of women. The 'Table +Alphabeticall' of Robert Cawdrey, which was dedicated to five 'right +honourable, Worshipfull, vertuous, and godlie Ladies[9],' the sisters +of his former pupil, Sir James Harrington, Knight, bears on its +title-page that it is 'gathered for the benefit and help of Ladies, +Gentlewomen, or any other vnskilfull persons.' Bullokar's _Expositor_ +was dedicated 'to the Right Honorable and Vertvovs his Singvlar Good +Ladie, the Ladie Jane Viscountesse Mountague,' under whose patronage +he hoped to see the work 'perhaps gracefully admitted among greatest +Ladies and studious Gentlewomen, to whose reading (I am made belieue) +it will not prooue altogether vngratefull.' In similar words, the +title-page of Cockeram's Dictionary proclaims its purpose of 'Enabling +as well Ladies and Gentlewomen ... as also Strangers of any Nation to +the vnderstanding of the more difficult Authors already printed in our +Language, and the more speedy attaining of an elegant perfection of +the English tongue, both in reading, speaking, and writing.' And +Thomas Blount, setting forth the purpose of his _Glossographia_, says, +in words of which one seems to have heard an echo in reference to an +English School in this University, 'It is chiefly intended for the +more-knowing Women, and less-knowing Men; or indeed for all such of +the unlearned, who can but finde in an Alphabet the word they +understand not.' + +It is noticeable that all these references to the needs of women +disappear from the later editions, and are wanting in later +dictionaries after 1660; whether this was owing to the fact that the +less-knowing women had now come upsides with the more-knowing men; or +that with the Restoration, female education went out of fashion, and +women sank back again into elegant illiteracy, I leave to the +historian to discover; I only, as a lexicographer, record the fact +that from the Restoration the dictionaries are silent about the +education of women, till we pass the Revolution settlement and reach +the Age of Queen Anne, when J.K. in 1702 tells us that his dictionary +is 'chiefly designed for the benefit of young Scholars, Tradesmen, +Artificers, and the female sex, who would learn to spell truely.' + +Blount's _Glossographia_ went through many editions down to 1707; but +two years after its appearance, Edward Phillips, the son of Milton's +sister Anne, published his _New World of Words_, which Blount with +some reason considered to be largely plagiarized from his book. He +held his peace, however, until Phillips brought out a Law-Dictionary +or _Nomothetes_, also largely copied from his own _Nomo-lexicon_, when +he could refrain himself no longer, and burst upon the world with his +indignant pamphlet, 'A World of Errors discovered in the New World of +Words, and in Nomothetes or the Interpreter,' in which he exhibits the +proofs of Phillips's cribbing, and makes wild sport of the cases in +which his own errors and misprints had either been copied or muddled +by his plagiarist. The latter did not vouchsafe a reply; he knew a +better plan; he quietly corrected in his next edition the mistakes +which Blount had so conveniently pointed out, and his 'New World of +Words,' furnished with an engraved frontispiece, containing views of +Oxford and Cambridge, and portraits of some Oxford and Cambridge +scholars, lived on in successive editions as long as Blount's. + +Time and space forbid me even to recount the later dictionaries of +this class and period; we need only mention that of Elisha Coles, a +chorister and subsequently matriculated student of Magdalen College +(of which his uncle, Elisha Coles, was steward under the +Commonwealth), a meritorious work which passed through numerous +editions down to 1732; and that of Edward Cocker, the celebrated +arithmetician and writing-master of St. George's, Southwark, by whom +people still sometimes asseverate 'according to Cocker.' This was +published after his death, 'from the author's correct copy,' by John +Hawkins, in 1704, with a portrait of the redoubtable Cocker himself in +flowing wig and gown, and the following lines:-- + + 'COCKER, who in fair writing did excell, + And in Arithmetic perform'd as well, + This necessary work took next in hand, + That Englishmen might English understand.' + +The last edition of Phillips' _New World of Words_ was edited after +his death, with numerous additions, by John Kersey, son of John Kersey +the mathematician. Two years later Kersey threw the materials into +another form and published it in an octavo, as Kersey's '_Dictionarium +Anglo-Britannicum_, or a General English Dictionary,' of which three +editions appeared before 1721. In this work there are included a +considerable number of obsolete words, chiefly from Spenser and his +contemporaries, marked O., and in some cases erroneously explained. +Professor Skeat has pointed out that this was the source of +Chatterton's Elizabethan vocabulary, and that he took the obsolete +words, which he attributed to Rowley, erroneous explanations and all, +direct from Kersey's Dictionary. + +More than 100 years had now elapsed since Robert Cawdrey prepared his +'Table Alphabeticall,' and nearly a century since the work of +Cockeram; and all the dictionaries which had meanwhile appeared, +although their size had steadily increased, were, in purpose and fact, +only what these works had been--Vocabularies of 'Hard Words,' not of +words in general. The notion that an English Dictionary ought to +contain _all_ English words had apparently as yet occurred to no one; +at least no one had proposed to carry the idea into practice. But this +further step in the evolution of the modern dictionary was now about +to be made, and the man who made it was one of the most deserving in +the annals of English lexicography. We now, looking back on the +eighteenth century, associate it chiefly with the work of Dr. Johnson; +but down beyond the middle of that century, and to the man in the +street much later, by far the best-known name in connexion with +dictionaries was that of NATHANAEL BAILEY. An advertisement appended +to the first edition of his Dictionary runs thus: 'Youth Boarded, and +taught the Hebrew, Greek, and Latin languages, in a Method more Easy +and Expedient than is common; also, other School-learning, by the +_Author_ of this _Dictionary_, to be heard of at Mr. Batley's, +Bookseller, at the Sign of the Dove in Paternoster Row.' Bailey was +the author or editor of several scholarly works; but, for us, his +great work was his _Universal Etymological English Dictionary_, +published in 1721. In this he aimed at including all English words; +yet not for the mere boast of 'completeness,' but for a practical +purpose. The dictionary was not merely explanatory, it was also +etymological; and though Englishmen might not need to be told the +meaning of _man_ or _woman_, _dog_ or _cat_[10], they might want a +hint as to their derivation. Bailey had hit the nail aright: +successive editions were called for almost every two years during the +century; when the author died, in 1742, the tenth edition was in the +press. In that of 1731, Bailey first marked the stress-accent, a step +in the direction of indicating pronunciation. In 1730, moreover, he +brought out with the aid of some specialists, his folio dictionary, +the greatest lexicographical work yet undertaken in English, into +which he also introduced diagrams and proverbs. This is an interesting +book historically, for, according to Sir John Hawkins, it formed the +working basis of Dr. Johnson[11]. + +Bailey had many imitators and rivals, nearly all of whom aimed, like +him, at including all words; of these I need only name Dyche and +Pardon 1735, B.N. Defoe 1735, and Benjamin Martin 1749. + +During the second quarter of the century, the feeling arose among +literary men, as well as among the booksellers, that the time had come +for the preparation of a 'Standard Dictionary' of the English tongue. +The language had now attained a high degree of literary perfection; a +perfect prose style, always a characteristic of maturity, had been +created; a brilliant galaxy of dramatists and essayists--Dryden, Pope, +Addison, Steele, Swift, Defoe--had demonstrated that English was +capable of expressing clearly and elegantly everything that needed to +be expressed in language. The age of Queen Anne was compared to the +Ciceronian age of Latin, or the age of Aristotle and Plato in Greek. +But in both these cases, as indeed in that of every known ancient +people, the language, after reaching its acme of perfection, had begun +to decay and become debased: the golden age of Latinity had passed +into a silvern, and that into a brazen and an iron age. The fear was +that a like fate should overtake English also; to avert which calamity +the only remedy appeared to be to _fix the language_ by means of a +'Standard Dictionary,' which should register the proper sense and use +of every word and phrase, from which no polite writer henceforth would +be expected to deviate; but, even as generation after generation of +boys and men found their perfection of Latinity in the imitation of +Cicero, so all succeeding ages of Englishmen should find their ideal +of speech and writing fixed for ever in this standard dictionary. To +us of a later age, with our fuller knowledge of the history of +language, and our wider experience of its fortunes, when it has to be +applied to entirely new fields of knowledge, such as have been opened +to us since the birth of modern science, this notion seems childlike +and pathetic. But it was eminently characteristic of the eighteenth +century, an age of staid and decorous subsidence from the energetic +restlessness of the seventeenth--an age in which men eschewed +revolution and innovation, and devoted themselves assiduously to +conserve, consolidate, polish, refine, and make the best of what they +had. + +In this notion of ascertaining, purifying, refining, and fixing the +language, England was only following in the wake of some other +countries. In Italy the _Accademia della Crusca_, and in France the +_Academie française_, had been instituted for this very purpose, and +the latter had, after twenty years of preparation, and forty more +years of work, published the first edition of a dictionary in which +the French language was (fondly and vainly) supposed to be thus +ascertained, sifted, and fixed for ever. England had no Academy; but +it was thought that what had been done in France by the Forty +Immortals might perhaps be done here by some leading man of letters. +The idea had, it appears, been put before Alexander Pope, and approved +by him; he is said even to have drawn up a list of the authors whose +writings might be taken as authorities for such a dictionary; but he +died in 1744, before anything further was done. The subject seems then +to have been pressed upon the attention of SAMUEL JOHNSON; but it was +not till 1747 that the matter took definite shape, when a syndicate of +five or six London booksellers contracted with Johnson to produce the +desired standard dictionary in the space of three years for the sum of +fifteen hundred guineas. Alas for human calculations, and especially +for those of dictionary makers! The work occupied nearly thrice the +specified time, and, ere it was finished, the stipulated sum had been +considerably overdrawn. At length, in 1755, appeared the two massive +folios, each 17 inches long, 10 inches wide, and 3-1/2 inches thick, +entitled 'A | Dictionary | of the | English Language | in which | the +Words are deduced from their Originals, | and | illustrated in their +different significations | by Examples from the Best Writers. | By +Samuel Johnson.' The limits of this lecture do not permit me to say +one tithe of what might and ought to be said of this great work. For +the present purpose it must suffice to point out that the special new +feature which it contributed to the evolution of the modern dictionary +was the illustration of the use of each word by a selection of +literary quotations, and the more delicate appreciation and +discrimination of senses which this involved and rendered possible. +Only where he had no quotations did Johnson insert words from Bailey's +folio, or other source, with _Dict._ as the authority. The literary +quotations were entirely supplied by himself from his capacious +memory, or from books specially perused and marked by him for +extraction. When he first began his work in the room in Gough Square, +his whole time was devoted to thus reading and marking books, from +which six clerkly assistants copied the marked quotations. The fact +that many of the quotations were inserted from memory without +verification (a practice facilitated by Johnson's plan of merely +naming the author, without specifying the particular work quoted, or +giving any reference whereby the passage could be turned up) is +undoubtedly the reason why many of the quotations are not verbally +exact. Even so, however, they are generally adequate for the purpose +for which they are adduced, that is, they usually contain the word for +which they are quoted, and the context is more or less accurately +rendered. But in some cases it is otherwise: Johnson's memory played +him false, and he quotes a passage for a word that it does not +actually contain. As an example, under _Distilment_ he correctly +quotes from _Hamlet_, 'And in the porches of mine ears did pour the +leperous distilment.' But when he reached _Instilment_, his memory +became vague, and forgetting that he had already quoted the passage +under _Distilment_, he quoted it again as 'the leperous instilment'--a +reading which does not exist in any text of Shakspere, and was a mere +temporary hallucination of memory. There are some other curious +mistakes, which must, I suppose, have crept in either in the course of +transcription or of printing. As specimens I mention two, because they +have unfortunately perverted ordinary usage. The two words _Coco_ and +_Cocoa_--the former a Portuguese word[12], naming the _coco-nut_, the +fruit of a palm-tree; the latter a latinized form of _Cacao_, the +Aztec name of a Central American shrub, whence we have cocoa and +chocolate--were always distinguished down to Johnson's time, and were +in fact distinguished by Johnson himself in his own writings. His +account of these in the Dictionary is quoted from Miller's _Gardener's +Dictionary_ and Hill's _Materia Medica_, in which the former is spelt +_coco_ and the latter _cacao_ and _cocoa_. But in Johnson's Dictionary +the two words are by some accident run together under the heading +_cocoa_, with the disastrous result that modern vulgar usage mixes the +two up, spells the _coco-nut_, 'cocoa-' as if it were _co-co-a_, and +on the other hand pronounces _cocoa_, the cacao-bean and the beverage, +as if it were _coco_. The word _dispatch_, from It. _dispaccio_, had +been in English use for some 250 years when Johnson's Dictionary +appeared, and had been correctly spelt by everybody (that is by +everybody but the illiterate) with dis-. This was Johnson's own +spelling both before and after he published the dictionary, as may be +seen in his _Letters_ edited by Dr. G. Birkbeck Hill[13]. It was also +the spelling of all the writers whom Johnson quoted. But by some +inexplicable error, the word got into the dictionary as _despatch_, +and this spelling was even substituted in most of the quotations. I +have not found that a single writer followed this erroneous spelling +in the eighteenth century: Nelson, Wellesley, Wellington, and all our +commanders and diplomatists wrote _Dispatches_; but since about 1820, +the filtering down of the influence of Johnson's Dictionary has caused +this erroneous spelling _despatch_ to become generally known and to be +looked upon as authoritative; so that at the present time about half +our newspapers give the erroneous form, to which, more larmentably, +the Post Office, after long retaining the correct official tradition, +recently capitulated. + +But despite small blemishes[14], the dictionary was a marvellous piece +of work to accomplish in eight and a half years; and it is quite +certain that, if all the quotations had had to be verified and +furnished with exact references, a much longer time, or the employment +of much more collaboration, would have been required. With much +antecedent preparation, with much skilled co-operation, and with +strenuous effort, it took more than nine years to produce the first +three letters of the alphabet of the Oxford New English Dictionary. + +Johnson's great work raised English lexicography altogether to a +higher level. In his hands it became a department of literature. The +value of the Dictionary was recognized from the first by men of +letters; a second edition was called for the same year. But it hardly +became a popular work, or even a work of popular fame, before the +present century. For forty years after its first publication editions +of Bailey followed each other as rapidly as ever; numerous new +dictionaries of the size and character of Bailey, often largely +indebted to Johnson's definitions, appeared. But the only new feature +introduced into lexicography between 1755 and the end of the century +was the indication of the Orthoepy or Pronunciation. From Bailey +onward, and by Johnson himself, the place of the stress-accent had +been marked, but no attempt had been made to show how such a group of +letters, for example, as _colonel_, or _enough_, or _phthisical_, was +actually pronounced; or, to use modern phraseology, to tell what the +_living word_ itself was, as distinguished from its written symbol. +This feature, so obviously important in a language of which the +spelling had ceased to be phonetic, was added by Dr. William Kenrick +in his 'New Dictionary' of 1773, a little later in 1775 by William +Perry, in 1780 by Thomas Sheridan, and especially in 1791 by John +Walker, whose authority long remained as supreme in the domain of +pronunciation, as that of Dr. Johnson in definition and illustration; +so that popular dictionaries of the first half of the present century +commonly claimed to be abridgements of 'Johnson's Dictionary, with, +the Pronunciation on the basis of Walker.' + +From the first quarter of the nineteenth century, the lexicographical +supremacy of Johnson's Dictionary was undisputed, and eminent students +of the language busied themselves in trying, not to supersede it, but +to supplement and perfect it. Numerous supplements, containing +additional words, senses, and quotations, were published; in 1818 a +new edition, embracing many such accessions, was prepared by the +learned Archdeacon Todd, and 'Todd's Johnson' continues to be an +esteemed work to our own day. But only two independent contributions +to the development of lexicography were made in the earlier half of +the nineteenth century. These were the American work of Noah Webster, +and the English work of Dr. Charles Richardson. + +Webster was a great man, a born definer of words; he was fired with +the idea that America ought to have a dictionary of its own form of +English, independent of British usage, and he produced a work of great +originality and value. Unfortunately, like many other clever men, he +had the notion that derivations can be elaborated from one's own +consciousness as well as definitions, and he included in his work +so-called 'etymologies' of this sort. But Etymology is simply +Word-history, and Word-history, like all other history, is a record of +the _facts_ which _did_ happen, not a fabric of conjectures as to what +may have happened. In the later editions of Webster, these +'derivations' have been cleared out _en masse_, and the etymology +placed in the hands of men abreast of the science of the time; and the +last edition of Webster, the _International_, is perhaps the best of +one-volume dictionaries. + +Richardson started on a new track altogether. Observing how much light +was shed on the meaning of words by Johnson's quotations, he was +impressed with the notion that, in a dictionary, definitions are +unnecessary, that quotations alone are sufficient; and he proceeded to +carry this into effect by making a dictionary without definitions or +explanations of meaning, or at least with the merest rudiments of +them, but illustrating each group of words by a large series of +quotations. In the collection of these he displayed immense research. +Going far beyond the limits of Dr. Johnson, he quoted from authors +back to the year 1300, and probably for the first time made Chaucer +and Gower and Piers Ploughman living names to many readers. And his +special notion was quite correct _in theory_. Quotations _will_ tell +the full meaning of a word, _if one has enough of them_; but it takes +a great many to be enough, and it takes a reader a long time to read +and weigh all the quotations, and to deduce from them the meanings +which might be put before him in a line or two. As a fact, while +Richardson's notion was correct in theory, mundane conditions of space +and time rendered it humanly impracticable. Nevertheless, the mass of +quotations, most of them with exact references, collected by him, and +printed under the word-groups which they illustrated, was a service +never to be undervalued or forgotten, and his work, 'A New Dictionary +of the English Language ... Illustrated by Quotations from the best +Authors' by Charles Richardson, LL.D., 1836-7, still continues to be a +valuable repertory of illustrations. + +Such was the position of English lexicography in the middle of the +nineteenth century, when the late Dr. Trench, then Dean of +Westminster, who had already written several esteemed works on the +English language and the history of words, read two papers before the +Philological Society in London 'On some Deficiencies in existing +English Dictionaries,' in which, while speaking with much appreciation +of the labours of Dr. Johnson and his successors, he declared that +these labours yet fell far short of giving us the ideal English +Dictionary. Especially, he pointed out that for the _history_ of words +and families of words, and for the changes of form and sense which +words had historically passed through, they gave hardly any help +whatever. No one could find out from all the dictionaries extant how +long any particular word had been in the language, which of the many +senses in which many words were used was the original, or how or when +these many senses had been developed; nor, in the case of words +described as _obsolete_, were we told _when_ they became obsolete or +by whom they were last used. He pointed out also that the obsolete and +the rarer words of the language had never been completely collected; +that thousands of words current in the literature of the past three +centuries had escaped the diligence of Johnson and all his +supplementers; that, indeed, the collection of the requisite material +for a complete dictionary could not be compassed by any one man, +however long-lived and however diligent, but must be the work of many +collaborators who would undertake systematically to read and to +extract English literature. He called upon the Philological Society, +therefore, as the only body in England then interesting itself in the +language, to undertake the collection of materials to complete the +work already done by Bailey, Johnson, Todd, Webster, Richardson, and +others, and to prepare a supplement to all the dictionaries, which +should register all omitted words and senses, and supply all the +historical information in which these works were lacking, and, above +all, should give quotations illustrating the first and last +appearance, and every notable point in the life-history of every word. + +From this impulse arose the movement which, widened and directed by +much practical experience, has culminated in the preparation of the +Oxford English Dictionary, 'A new English Dictionary on Historical +Principles, founded mainly on the materials collected by the +Philological Society.' This dictionary superadds to all the features +that have been successively evolved by the long chain of workers, the +historical information which Dr. Trench desiderated. It seeks not +merely to record every word that has been used in the language for the +last 800 years, with its written form and signification, and the +pronunciation of the current words, but to furnish a biography of each +word, giving as nearly as possible the date of its birth or first +known appearance, and, in the case of an obsolete word or sense, of +its last appearance, the source from which it was actually derived, +the form and sense with which it entered the language or is first +found in it, and the successive changes of form and developments of +sense which it has since undergone. All these particulars are derived +from historical research; they are an induction of facts gathered by +the widest investigation of the written monuments of the language. For +the purposes of this historical illustration more than five millions +of extracts have been made, by two thousand volunteer Readers, from +innumerable books, representing the English literature of all ages, +and from numerous documentary records. From these, and the further +researches for which they provide a starting-point, the history of +each word is deduced and exhibited. + +Since the Philological Society's scheme was propounded, several large +dictionaries have been compiled, adopting one or more of Archbishop +Trench's suggestions, and thus showing some of the minor features of +this dictionary. They have collected some of the rare and obsolete +words and senses of the past three centuries; they have attained to +greater fullness and exactness in exhibiting the current uses of +words, and especially of the many modern words which the progress of +physical science has called into being. But they leave the _history_ +of the words themselves where it was when Dr. Trench pointed out the +deficiencies of existing dictionaries. And their literary +illustrations of the older words are, in too many cases, those of Dr. +Johnson, copied from dictionary to dictionary without examination or +verification, and, what is more important, without acknowledgement, so +that the reader has no warning that a given quotation is merely +second-or third-hand, and, therefore, to be accepted with +qualification[15]. The quotations in the New English Dictionary, on +the other hand, have been supplied afresh by its army of volunteer +Readers; or, when for any reason one is adopted from a preceding +dictionary without verification, the fact is stated, both as an +acknowledgement of others' work, and as a warning to the reader that +it is given on intermediate authority. + +Original work, patient induction of facts, minute verification of +evidence, are slow processes, and a work so characterized cannot be +put together with scissors and paste, or run off with the speed of the +copyist. All the great dictionaries of the modern languages have taken +a long time to make; but the speed with which the New English +Dictionary has now advanced nearly to its half-way point can +advantageously claim comparison with the progress of any other great +dictionary, even when this falls far behind in historical and +inductive character.[16] Be the speed what it may, however, there is +the consideration that the work thus done is done once for all; the +structure now reared will have to be added to, continued, and extended +with time, but it will remain, it is believed, the great body of fact +on which all future work will be built. It is never possible to +forecast the needs and notions of those who shall come after us; but +with our present knowledge it is not easy to conceive what new feature +can now be added to English Lexicography. At any rate, it can be +maintained that in the Oxford Dictionary, permeated as it is through +and through with the scientific method of the century, Lexicography +has for the present reached its supreme development. + +In the course of this lecture, it has been needful to give so many +details as to individual works, that my audience may at times have +failed 'to see the wood for the trees,' and may have lost the clue of +the lexicographical evolution. Let me then in conclusion recapitulate +the stages which have been already indicated. These are: the glossing +of difficult words in Latin manuscripts by easier Latin, and at length +by English words; the collection of the English glosses into +Glossaries, and the elaboration of Latin-English Vocabularies; the +later formation of English-Latin Vocabularies; the production of +Dictionaries of English and another modern language; the compilation +of Glossaries and Dictionaries of 'hard' English words; the extension +of these by Bailey, for etymological purposes, to include words in +general; the idea of a Standard Dictionary, and its realization by Dr. +Johnson with illustrative quotations; the notion that a Dictionary +should also show the pronunciation of the living word; the extension +of the function of quotations by Richardson; the idea that the +Dictionary should be a biography of every word, and should set forth +every fact connected with its origin, history, and use, on a strictly +historical method. These stages coincide necessarily with stages of +our national and literary history; the first two were already reached +before the Norman Conquest; the third followed upon the recognition of +English as the official language of the nation, and its employment by +illustrious Middle English writers. The Dictionaries of the modern +languages were necessitated first by the fact that French had at +length ceased to be the living tongue of any class of Englishmen, and +secondly by the other fact that the rise of the modern languages and +increasing intercourse with the Continent made Latin no longer +sufficient as a common medium of international communication. The +consequences of the Renascence and of the New Learning of the +sixteenth century appear in the need for the Dictionaries of Hard +Words at the beginning of the seventeenth; the literary polish of the +age of Anne begat the yearning for a standard dictionary, and inspired +the work of Johnson; the scientific and historical spirit of the +nineteenth century has at once called for and rendered possible the +Oxford English Dictionary. Thus the evolution of English Lexicography +has followed with no faltering steps the evolution of English History +and the development of English Literature. + + + +FOOTNOTES: + +[1] Thus the first six Latin words in A glossed are _apodixen_, +_amineæ_, _amites_, _arcontus_, _axungia_; the last six are _arbusta_, +_anser_, _affricus_, _atticus_, _auiaria_, _avena_; mostly 'hard' +Latin it will be perceived. The Erfurt Glossary is, to a great extent, +a duplicate of the Epinal. + +[2] Thus the first five Latin entries in ab- are _abminiculum_, +_abelena_, _abiecit_, _absida_, _abies_, and the last five _aboleri_, +_ab borea_, _abiles_, _aborsus_, _absorduum_. To find whether a wanted +word in ab- occurs in this glossary, it was necessary to look through +more than two columns containing ninety-five entries. + +[3] An important collection of these early beginnings of lexicography +in England was made so long ago as 1857, by the late distinguished +antiquary Thomas Wright, and published as the first volume of a +Library of National Antiquities. A new edition of this with sundry +emendations and additions was prepared and published in 1884 by +Professor R.F. Wülcker of Leipzig, and the collection is now generally +referred to by scholars in German fashion under the designation of +Wright-Wülcker. + +[4] This is the primary reason why in Middle and Modern English, +unlike what is found in German and Dutch, the terms of culture, art, +science, and philosophy, are of French or, through French, of Latin +origin. The corresponding Old English terms were forgotten during the +age of illiteracy, and when, generations later, the speaker of English +came again to deal with such subjects, he had to do like Layamon, when +he knew no longer _tungol-croeft_, and could refer to it only as 'the +craft ihote _astronomie_ in other kunnes speche.' + +[5] Also _Medulla Grammaticae_, or usually _Grammatice_. + +[6] At the end is an alphabetical list of adjectives; extending from +lf. 79a, col. 2, to 83a, foot. + +[7] It must however be mentioned that the second dictionary of English +and another modern tongue was appropriately 'A Dictionary in Englyshe +and Welshe, moche necessary to all suche Welshemen as wil spedlye +learne the englyshe tongue, thought vnto the kynges maiestie very mete +to be sette forth to the vse of his graces subiectes in Wales, ... by +Wyllyam Salesbury.' The colophon is 'Imprynted at London in Foster +Lane, by me John Waley. 1547.' + +[8] In the Dedication he says, 'Which worke, long ago for the most +part, was gathered by me, but lately augmented by my sonne Thomas, who +now is Schoolemaister in London.' + +[9] 'To the right honourable, worshipfull, vertuous, & godlie Ladies, +the Lady Hastings, the Lady Dudley, the Lady Mountague, the Ladie +Wingfield, and the Lady Leigh, his Christian friends, R.C. wisheth +great prosperitie in this life, with increase of grace, and peace from +GOD our Father, through Iesus Christ our Lord and onely Sauiour.' (A +2.) + +[10] His explanations of such words were curt enough: '_Cat_, a +Creature well known'; '_Horse_, a Beast well known'; '_Man_, a +Creature endued with Reason.' + +[11] 'An interleaved copy of Bailey's dictionary in folio he made the +repository of the several articles.' _Works of J._, 1787, I. 175. + +[12] Pg. _coco_, a grinning mask, applied to the coco-nut because of +the three holes and central protuberance at its apex, suggesting two +eyes, a mouth, and nose. + +[13] The following are examples of his own practice: _The Rambler_ +(1751), No. 153, par. 3, 'I was in my eighteenth year dispatched to +the university.' Ibid., No. 161, par. 4, 'I ... soon dispatched a +bargain on the usual terms.' _Letter to Mrs. Thrale_, May 6, 1776, 'We +dispatched our journey very peaceably.' + +[14] Among such must be reckoned the treatment of words in the +explanation of which Johnson showed political or personal animus or +whimsical humour, as in the well-known cases of _whig_, _tory_, +_excise_, _pension_, _pensioner_, _oats_, _Grub-street_, +_lexicographer_ (see Boswell's _Johnson_, ed. Birkbeck Hill, i. 294); +although it must be admitted that these have come to be among the +famous spots of the Dictionary, and have given gentle amusement to +thousands, to whom it has been a delight to see 'human nature' too +strong for lexicographic decorum. + +[15] In some cases, long Lists of the Authors, from whose works 'the +illustrative quotations have been selected,' are given, without the +statement that many of those quotations have not actually been +selected from the authors and works named, but have merely been +annexed from Johnson or one of his supplementers. + +[16] The famous _Deutsches Wörterbuch_ of Jacob and Wilhelm Grimm, +after many years of preparation, began to be printed in 1852; Jacob +Grimm himself died in 1863, in the middle of the letter F; the work is +expected to reach the end of S by the close of the century. The great +_Woordenboek der Nederlandsche Taal_ was commenced in 1852; its first +volume, _A--Ajuin_, was published in 1882, and it is not yet quite +half-finished. Of the new edition of the _Vocabolario della Crusca_, +which is to a certain extent on historical principles, Vol. I, +containing A, was published in 1863, and Vol. VIII, completing I, in +1899; at least twenty-five more years will be required to reach Z. +None of these works embraces so long a period of the language, or is +so strictly historical in method, as the New English Dictionary. +Rather are they, like Littré's great _Dictionnaire de la Langue +Française_, Dictionaries of the modern language, with the current +words more or less historically treated. + + + + + + +End of the Project Gutenberg EBook of The evolution of English lexicography +by James Augustus Henry Murray + +*** END OF THIS PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK EVOLUTION OF ENGLISH LEXICOGRAPHY *** + +***** This file should be named 11694-8.txt or 11694-8.zip ***** +This and all associated files of various formats will be found in: + https://www.gutenberg.org/1/1/6/9/11694/ + +Produced by Brendan Lane and the Online Distributed Proofreading Team. + +Updated editions will replace the previous one--the old editions +will be renamed. + +Creating the works from public domain print editions means that no +one owns a United States copyright in these works, so the Foundation +(and you!) can copy and distribute it in the United States without +permission and without paying copyright royalties. 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Murray</title> +<style type="text/css"> + /*<![CDATA[ XML blockout */ + <!-- + P { text-align: justify; } + H1,H2,H3,H4,H5,H6 { + text-align: center; /* all headings centered */ + } + HR { width: 33%; + margin-top: 1em; + margin-bottom: 1em; + } + BODY{margin-left: 10%; + margin-right: 10%; + } + + .poem p {margin: 0; padding-left: 3em; text-indent: -3em;} + + // --> + /* XML end ]]>*/ +</style> + +</head> +<body> + + +<pre> + +The Project Gutenberg EBook of The evolution of English lexicography +by James Augustus Henry Murray + +This eBook is for the use of anyone anywhere at no cost and with +almost no restrictions whatsoever. You may copy it, give it away or +re-use it under the terms of the Project Gutenberg License included +with this eBook or online at www.gutenberg.org + + +Title: The evolution of English lexicography + +Author: James Augustus Henry Murray + +Release Date: March 24, 2004 [EBook #11694] + +Language: English + +Character set encoding: ISO-8859-1 + +*** START OF THIS PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK EVOLUTION OF ENGLISH LEXICOGRAPHY *** + + + + +Produced by Brendan Lane and the Online Distributed Proofreading Team. + + + + + +</pre> + +<h2>THE ROMANES LECTURE<br />1900</h2> + +<h1>The Evolution of English Lexicography</h1> + +<h2>BY JAMES A.H. MURRAY</h2> +<h3>M.A., LL.D., D.C.L., PH.D.</h3> + +<h3>DELIVERED IN<br />THE SHELDONIAN THEATRE, OXFORD,<br />JUNE 22, 1900</h3> + +<!--Pg005--> + + + +<p>When the ‘Act to facilitate the provision of Allotments +for the Labouring Classes’ was before the +House of Commons in 1887, a well-known member for +a northern constituency asked the Minister who had +charge of the measure for a definition of the term +<i>allotment</i>, which occurred so often in the Bill. The +Minister somewhat brusquely told his interrogator +to ‘look in the Dictionary,’ at which there was, +according to the newspapers, ‘a laugh.’ The member +warmly protested that, being called upon to consider +a measure dealing with things therein called ‘Allotments’, +a term not known to English Law, nor +explained in the Bill itself, he had a right to ask +for a definition. But the only answer he received +was ‘Johnson's Dictionary! Johnson's Dictionary!’ at +which, according to the newspapers, the House gave +‘another laugh,’ and the interrogator subsided. The +real humour of the situation, which was unfortunately<!--Pg006--> +lost upon the House of Commons, was, that as agricultural +allotments had not been thought of in the +days of Dr. Johnson, no explanation of the term in +this use is to be found in Johnson's Dictionary; as, +however, this happened to be unknown, alike to the +questioner and to the House, the former missed +a chance of ‘scoring’ brilliantly, and the House the +chance of a third laugh, this time at the expense of +the Minister. But the replies of the latter are typical +of the notions of a large number of persons, who +habitually speak of ‘the Dictionary,’ just as they do +of ‘the Bible,’ or ‘the Prayer-book,’ or ‘the Psalms’; +and who, if pressed as to the authorship of these works, +would certainly say that ‘the Psalms’ were composed +by David, and ‘the Dictionary’ by Dr. Johnson.</p> + +<p>I have met persons of intelligence who supposed +that if Dr. Johnson was not the sole author of ‘the +Dictionary’—a notion which, in view of the ‘pushfulness’ +wherewith, in recent times, Dictionaries, +American and other, have been pressed upon public +notice, is now not so easily tenable—he was, at least, +the ‘original author,’ from whose capacious brain that +work first emanated. Whereas, in truth, Dr. Johnson +had been preceded by scores of workers, each of +whom had added his stone or stones to the lexicographic +cairn, which had already risen to goodly +proportions when Johnson made to it his own splendid +contribution.</p> + +<p>For, the English Dictionary, like the English Constitution, +is the creation of no one man, and of no +one age; it is a growth that has slowly developed itself<!--Pg007--> +adown the ages. Its beginnings lie far back in times +almost prehistoric. And these beginnings themselves, +although the English Dictionary of to-day is lineally +developed from them, were neither Dictionaries, nor +even English. As to their language, they were in the +first place and principally Latin: as to their substance, +they consisted, in large part at least, of <i>glosses</i>. They +were Latin, because at the time to which we refer, +the seventh and eighth centuries of our era, Latin was +in Western Europe the only language of books, the +learning of Latin the portal to all learning. And they +were <i>glosses</i> in this wise: the possessor of a Latin +book, or the member of a religious community which +were the fortunate possessors of half-a-dozen books, +in his ordinary reading of this literature, here and +there came across a difficult word which lay outside +the familiar Latin vocabulary. When he had ascertained +the meaning of this, he often, as a help to his +own memory, and a friendly service to those who +might handle the book after him, wrote the meaning +over the word in the original text, in a smaller hand, +sometimes in easier Latin, sometimes, if he knew no +Latin equivalent, in a word of his own vernacular. +Such an explanatory word written over a word of the +text is a <i>gloss</i>. Nearly all the Latin MSS. of religious +or practical treatises, that have come down to us from +the Middle Ages, contain examples of such glosses, +sometimes few, sometimes many. It may naturally be +supposed that this glossing of MSS. began in Celtic +and Teutonic, rather than in Romanic lands. In the +latter, the old Latin was not yet so dead, nor the vulgar<!--Pg008--> +idioms that were growing out of it, as yet so distinct +from it, as to render the glossing of the one by the +other needful. The relation of Latin to, say, the +Romanic of Provence, was like that of literary English +to Lancashire or Somerset dialect; no one thinks +of glossing a literary English book by Somersetshire +word-forms; for, if he can read at all, it is the literary +English that he does read. So if the monk of +Burgundy or Provence could read at all, it was the +Book-Latin that he could and did read. But, to the +Teuton or the Celt, Latin was an entirely foreign +tongue, the meaning of whose words he could not +guess by any likeness to his own; by him Latin had +been acquired by slow and painful labour, and to him +the gloss was an important aid. To the modern +philologist, Teutonic or Celtic, these glosses are very +precious; they have preserved for us a large number +of Old English, Old Irish, Old German words that +occur nowhere else, and which, but for the work of +the old glossators, would have been lost for ever. +No inconsiderable portion of the oldest English +vocabulary has been recovered entirely from these +interlinear glosses; and we may anticipate important +additions to that vocabulary when Professor Napier +gives us the volume in which he has been gathering up +all the unpublished glosses that yet remain in MSS.</p> + +<p>In process of time it occurred to some industrious +reader that it would be a useful exercise of his +industry, to collect out of all the manuscripts to which +he had access, all the glosses that they contained, and +combine them in a list. In this compact form they could<!--Pg009--> +be learned by heart, thus extending the vocabulary +at his command, and making him independent of the +interlinear glosses, and they could also be used in +the school-teaching of pupils and neophytes, so as +sensibly to enlarge their stock of Latin words and +phrases. A collection of glosses, thus copied out and +thrown together into a single list, constituted a <i>Glossarium</i> +or <i>Glossary</i>; it was the remote precursor +of the seventeenth-century ‘Table Alphabetical,’ or +‘Expositor of Hard Words.’</p> + +<p>Such was one of the fountain-heads of English +lexicography; the other is to be found in the fact that +in those distant days, as in our own, the learning of +Latin was the acquisition of a foreign tongue which +involved the learning of a grammar and of a vocabulary. +Both grammar and vocables were probably in the main +communicated by oral teaching, by the living voice of +the master, and were handed down by oral tradition +from generation to generation. The stock of vocables +was acquired by committing to memory classified lists +of words; lists of names of parts of the body, lists of +the names of domestic animals, of wild beasts, of fishes, +of trees, of heavenly bodies, of geographical features, +of names of relationship and kindred, of ranks and +orders of men, of names of trades, of tools, of arms, +of articles of clothing, of church furniture, of diseases, +of virtues and vices, and so on. Such lists of vocables, +with their meaning in the vulgar tongue, were also at +times committed to paper or parchment leaves, and +a collection of these constituted a <i>Vocabularium</i> or +<i>Vocabulary</i>.</p> + +<!--Pg010--> + +<p>In their practical use the Vocabulary and the Glossary +fulfilled similar offices; and so they were often combined; +the possessor of a Vocabulary enlarged it by the +addition of a Glossary, which he or some one before +him had copied out and collected from the glossed +manuscripts of his bibliotheca. He extended it by +copying into it vocabularies and glossaries borrowed +from other scholars; he lent his own collection to be +similarly copied by others. Several such collections +exist formed far back in Old English times, the composite +character of which, partly glossary, partly +vocabulary, reveals itself upon even a cursory examination.</p> + +<p>As these manuscript lists came to be copied and +re-copied, it was seen that their usefulness would be +increased by putting the words and phrases into alphabetical +order, whereby a particular word could be more +readily found than by looking for it in a promiscuous +list of some hundreds or thousands of words. The first +step was to bring together all the words having the +same first letter. The copyist instead of transcribing +the glossary right on as it stood, extracted first all +the words beginning with A; then he went through +it again picking out all the words beginning with B; +then a third time for those with C, and so on with +D, E, and the rest, till he had transcribed the whole, +and his copy was no longer in the fortuitous disorder +of the original, but in what we call <i>first-letter</i> order.</p> + +<p>A still later scribe making a copy of this vocabulary, +or possibly combining two or three lists already in +first-letter order, carried the alphabetical arrangement<!--Pg011--> +one stage further; instead of transcribing the <i>A</i>-words +as they stood, he went through them, picking out +first those that began with <i>Aa-</i>, then those in <i>Ab-</i>, +then those in <i>Ac-</i>, and so on, to <i>Az</i>. Then he did +the same with the <i>B</i>-words, picking out first all in +<i>Ba-</i>, then <i>Be-</i>, <i>Bi-</i>, <i>Bl-</i>, +<i>Bo-</i>, <i>Br-</i>, <i>Bu-</i>, <i>By-</i>; and so +exhausting the <i>B</i>-words. Thus, at length, in this +second recension, the Vocabulary stood, not yet completely +alphabetical, but alphabetized as far as the +second letter of each word.</p> + +<p>All these stages can actually be seen in four of the +most ancient glossaries of English origin that have +come down to us, known respectively, from the libraries +to which they now belong, as the Leiden, the Epinal, +the Erfurt, and the Corpus (the last at Corpus Christi +College, Cambridge). The Leiden Glossary represents +the earliest stage of such a work, being really, in the +main, a collection of smaller glossaries, or rather sets +of glosses, each set entered under the name of the +treatise from which it was extracted, the words in +each being left in the order in which they happened +to come in the treatise or work, without any further +arrangement, alphabetical or other. It appears also +to incorporate in a final section some small earlier +vocabularies or lists of names of animals and other +classes of things. In order to discover whether any +particular word occurs in this glossary, the whole work +from beginning to end must be looked through. The +first advance upon this is seen in the Epinal Glossary, +which uses part at least of the materials of the Leiden, +incorporating with them many others. This glossary<!--Pg012--> +has advanced to <i>first-letter</i> order: all the A-words +come together, followed by all the B-words, and so +on to Z, but there is no further arrangement under +the individual letters<span class="fnmark"><a href="#fntext1" name="fnmark1" id="fnmark1">[1]</a></span>. There are nearly fourteen +columns of words beginning with A, containing each +about forty entries; the whole of these 550 entries +must be looked through to see if a given word occurs +in this glossary. The third stage is represented by +the Corpus Glossary, which contains the materials of +its predecessors, and a great deal more, and in which +the alphabetical arrangement has been carried as far +as the second letter of each word: thus the first +ninety-five words explained begin with <i>Ab-</i>, and the +next seventy-eight with <i>Ac-</i>, and so on, but the +alphabetization goes no further<span class="fnmark"><a href="#fntext2" name="fnmark2" id="fnmark2">[2]</a></span>; the glossary is in +<i>second-letter</i> order. In at least one glossary of the +tenth century, contained in a MS. of the British +Museum (Harl. 3376), the alphabetical arrangement +has been carried as far as the third letter, beyond +which point it does not appear to have advanced.</p> + +<p>The MS. of the Corpus Glossary dates to the early +part of the eighth century; the Epinal and Erfurt—although +the MS. copies that have come down to<!--Pg013--> +us are not older, or not so old—must from their +nature go back as glossaries to a still earlier date, +and the Leiden to an earlier still; so that we carry +back these beginnings of lexicography in England +to a time somewhere between 600 and 700 A.D., and +probably to an age not long posterior to the introduction +of Christianity in the south of England at the end +of the sixth century. Many more vocabularies were +compiled between these early dates and the eleventh +century; and it is noteworthy that those ancient +glossaries and vocabularies not only became fuller and +more orderly as time advanced, but they also became +more <i>English</i>. For, as I have already mentioned, +the primary purpose of the glosses was to explain +difficult <i>Latin</i> words; this was done at first, whenever +possible, by easier Latin words; apparently, only +when none such were known, was the explanation +given in the vernacular, in Old English. In the +Epinal Glossary the English words are thus relatively +few. In the first page they number thirty out of 117, +and in some pages they do not amount to half that +number. In the Corpus Glossary they have become +proportionally more numerous; and in the glossaries +that follow, the Latin explanations are more and +more eliminated and replaced by English ones, until +the vocabularies of the tenth and eleventh centuries, +whether arranged alphabetically or under classified +headings, are truly Latin-English: every Latin word +given is explained by an English one; and we see +clearly that a new aim had gradually evolved itself; +the object was no longer to explain difficult Latin<!--Pg014--> +words, but to give the English equivalents of as +many words as possible, and thus practically to provide +a Latin Dictionary for the use of Englishmen<span class="fnmark"><a href="#fntext3" name="fnmark3" id="fnmark3">[3]</a></span>.</p> + +<p>Learning and literature, science and art, had attained +to fair proportions in England, and in the Old English +tongue, when their progress was arrested by the +Norman Conquest. The Norman Conquest brought to +England law and organization, and welded the country +into a political unity; but it overthrew Old English +learning and literary culture. In literary culture the +Normans were about as far behind the people whom +they conquered as the Romans were when they made +themselves masters of Greece; and it was not till +some two generations after the Conquest, that learning +and literature regained in England somewhat of the +position which they had occupied two centuries earlier. +And this new literary culture was naturally confined to +the French dialect of the conquerors, which had become +the language of court and castle, of church and law, of +chivalry and the chase; while the rich and cultured +tongue of Alfred and Ælfric was left for generations +without literary employment, during which time it lost +nearly all its poetical, philosophical, scientific, and +artistic vocabulary, retaining only the words of common<!--Pg015--> +life and everyday use<span class="fnmark"><a href="#fntext4" name="fnmark4" id="fnmark4">[4]</a></span>. And for more than 300 years +after the Conquest English lexicography stood still. +Between 1066 and 1400, Wright-Wülcker shows only +two meagre vocabularies, occupying some twenty-four +columns of his volume. One of these, of the twelfth +century, is only an echo of the earlier literary age, +a copy of a pre-Conquest glossary, which some scribe +who could still read the classical tongue of the old +West Saxon Court, transliterated into the corrupted +forms of his own generation. The other is a short +vocabulary of the Latin and vernacular names of +plants, a species of class-vocabulary of which there +exist several of rather early date.</p> + +<p>But when we reach the end of the fourteenth century, +English is once more in the ascendant. Robert of +Gloucester, Robert Mannyng of Brunne, Dan Michel +of Canterbury, and Richard Rolle of Hampole, William +Langland and John Wyclif, John Gower and Geoffrey +Chaucer, and many other authors of less known or +entirely unknown name, have written in the tongue +of the people; English has been sanctioned for use +in the courts of law; and, as John of Trevisa tells +us, has, since the ‘furste moreyn’ or Great Pestilence +of 1349 (which Mrs. Markham has taught nineteenth-<!--Pg016-->century +historians to call the ‘Black Death’), been +introduced into the grammar schools in the translation +of Latin exercises, which boys formerly rendered +into French. And under these new conditions lexicographical +activity at once bursts forth with vigour. +Six important vocabularies of the fifteenth century are +printed by Wright-Wülcker, most of them arranged, +like the Old English one of Ælfric, under subject-headings; +but one large one, extending to 2,500 words, +entirely alphabetical. About the middle of the century, +also, was compiled the famous <i>Medulla Grammatices</i><span class="fnmark"><a href="#fntext5" name="fnmark5" id="fnmark5">[5]</a></span>, +designated, with some propriety, ‘the first Latin-English +Dictionary,’ the popularity of which is shown +by the many manuscript copies that still survive; +while it formed the basis of the <i>Ortus</i> (i.e. <i>Hortus</i>) +<i>Vocabulorum</i> or first printed Latin-English Dictionary, +which issued from the press of Wynkyn de Worde +in 1500, and in many subsequent editions down to +1533, as well as in an edition by Pynson in 1509.</p> + +<p>But all the glossaries and vocabularies as yet +mentioned were Latin-English; their primary object +was not English, but the elucidation of Latin. A +momentous advance was made about 1440, when +Brother Galfridus Grammaticus—Geoffrey the Grammarian—a +Dominican friar of Lynn Episcopi in +Norfolk, produced the English-Latin vocabulary, to +which he gave the name of <i>Promptuarium</i> or <i>Promptorium +Parvulorum</i>, the Children's Store-room or +Repository.</p> + +<p>The <i>Promptorium</i>, the name of which has now<!--Pg017--> +become a household word to students of the history +of English, is a vocabulary containing some 10,000 +words—substantives, adjectives, and verbs—with their +Latin equivalents, which, as edited by Mr. Albert +Way for the Camden Society in 1865, makes a goodly +volume. Many manuscript copies of it were made and +circulated, of which six or seven are known to be still +in existence, and after the introduction of printing it +passed through many editions in the presses of Pynson, +Wynkyn de Worde, and Julian Notary.</p> + +<p>Later in the same century, the year 1483 saw the +compilation of a similar, but quite independent work, +which its author named the <i>Catholicon Anglicum</i>, +that is, the English Catholicon or Universal treatise, +after the name of the celebrated Latin dictionary of +the Middle Ages, the <i>Catholicon</i> or <i>Summa</i> of Johannes +de Balbis, or John of Genoa, made in 1286. The +English <i>Catholicon</i> was in itself a work almost equally +valuable with the <i>Promptorium</i>; but it appears never +to have attained to the currency of the <i>Promptorium</i>, +which appeared as a printed book in 1499, while +the <i>Catholicon</i> remained in two MSS. till printed for +the Early English Text Society in 1881.</p> + +<p>The Renascence of Ancient Learning had now +reached England, and during the sixteenth century +there were compiled and published many important +Latin-English and English-Latin vocabularies and +dictionaries. Among these special mention must be +made of the Dictionary of Sir Thomas Elyot, Knight, +the first work, so far as I know, which took to itself +in English what was destined to be the famous name<!--Pg018--> +of DICTIONARY, in mediaeval Latin, <i>Dictionarius liber</i>, +or <i>Dictionarium</i>, literally a repertory of <i>dictiones</i>, a +word originally meaning ‘sayings,’ but already by +the later Latin grammarians used in the sense of +<i>verba</i> or <i>vocabula</i> ‘words.’ The early vocabularies +and dictionaries had many names, often quaint and +striking; thus one of <i>c</i>1420 is entitled the <i>Nominale</i>, +or Name-book; mention has already been made of the +<i>Medulla Grammatices</i>, or Marrow of Grammar, the +<i>Ortus Vocabulorum</i>, or Garden of Words, the <i>Promptorium +Parvulorum</i>, and the <i>Catholicon Anglicum</i>; later +we find the <i>Manipulus Vocabulorum</i>, or Handful of Vocables, +the <i>Alvearie</i> or Beehive, the <i>Abecedarium</i>, the +<i>Bibliotheca</i>, or Library, the <i>Thesaurus</i>, or Treasury of +Words—what Old English times would have called +the <i>Word-hord</i>, the <i>World of Words</i>, the <i>Table Alphabetical</i>, +the <i>English Expositor</i>, the <i>Ductor in Linguas</i>, +or Guide to the Tongues, the <i>Glossographia</i>, the <i>New +World of Words</i>, the <i>Etymologicum</i>, the <i>Gazophylacium</i>; +and it would have been impossible to predict in the +year 1538, when Sir Thomas Elyot published his +‘Dictionary,’ that this name would supplant all the +others, and even take the place of the older and +better-descended word <i>Vocabulary</i>; much less that +<i>Dictionary</i> should become so much a name to conjure +with, as to be applied to works which are not word-books +at all, but reference-books on all manner of +subjects, as Chronology, Geography, Music, Commerce, +Manufactures, Chemistry, or National Biography, +arranged in Alphabetical or ‘Dictionary order.’ +The very phrase, ‘Dictionary order,’ would in the<!--Pg019--> +first half of the sixteenth century have been unmeaning, +for all dictionaries were not yet alphabetical. +There is indeed no other connexion between a dictionary +and alphabetical order, than that of a balance +of convenience. Experience has shown that though +an alphabetical order makes the matter of a dictionary +very disjointed, scattering the terminology of a particular +art, science, or subject, all over the book, and +even when related words come together, often putting +the unimportant derivative in front of the important +primitive word, it is yet that by which a word or +heading can be found, with least trouble and exercise +of thought. But this experience has been only gradually +acquired; even now the native dictionaries of +some Oriental languages are often not in alphabetical +order; in such a language as Chinese, indeed, there +is no alphabetical order in which to place the words, +and they follow each other in the dictionary in a +purely arbitrary and conventional fashion. In English, +as we have seen, many of the vocabularies from the +eleventh to the fifteenth century, were arranged under +class-headings according to subject; and, although Sir +Thomas Elyot's Dictionary was actually in alphabetical +order, that of J. Withals, published in 1554, under the +title ‘A short dictionarie for young beginners,’ and +with the colophon ‘Thus endeth this Dictionary very +useful for Children, compiled by J. Withals,’ reverts +to the older arrangement of subject-classes, as Names +of things in the Æther or skie, the xii Signes, the +vii Planets, Tymes, Seasons, Other times in the yere, +the daies of the weeke, the Ayre, the viii windes, the<!--Pg020--> +iiii partes of the worlde, Byrdes, Bees, Flies, and +other, the Water, the Sea, Fishes, a Shippe with other +Water vessels, the earth, Mettales, Serpents, woorms +and creepinge beastes, Foure-footed beastes, &c.<span class="fnmark"><a href="#fntext6" name="fnmark6" id="fnmark6">[6]</a></span></p> + +<p>It is unnecessary in this lecture to recount even +the names of the Latin-English and English-Latin +dictionaries of the sixteenth century. It need only be +mentioned that there were six successive and successively +enlarged editions of Sir Thomas Elyot; that +the last three of these were edited by Thomas Cooper, +‘Schole-Maister of Maudlens in Oxford’ (the son of +an Oxford tradesman, and educated as a chorister in +Magdalen College School, who rose to be Dean of +Christ Church and Vice-Chancellor of the University, +and to hold successively the episcopal sees of Lincoln +and Winchester), and that Cooper, in 1565, published +his great <i>Thesaurus Linguæ Romanæ et Britannicæ</i>, +‘opera et industria Thomæ Cooperi Magdalenensis,’ +founded upon the great French work of Robert +Stephens (Estienne), the learned French scholar and +printer. Of this work Martin Marprelate says in his +<i>Epistle</i> (Arber, p. 42), ‘His Lordship of Winchester +is a great Clarke, for he hath translated his Dictionarie, +called Cooper's Dictionarie, verbatim out of Robert +Stephanus his <i>Thesaurus</i>, and ill-favoured too, they +say!’ This was, however, the criticism of an adversary; +Cooper had added to Stephens's work many accessions +from his editions of Sir Thomas Elyot, and other +sources; his <i>Thesaurus</i> was the basis of later Latin-<!--Pg021-->English +dictionaries, and traces of it may still be discovered +in the Latin-English dictionaries of to-day.</p> + +<p>Of printed English-Latin works, after the <i>Promptorium</i>, +one of the earliest was the <i>Vulgaria</i> of William +Herman, Headmaster and Provost of Eton, printed by +Pynson in 1519. This is a <i>Dictionarium</i> or <i>liber dictionarius</i> +in the older sense, for it consists of short +<i>dictiones</i> or sayings, maxims, and remarks, arranged +under subject-headings, such as <i>De Pietate</i>, <i>De Impietate</i>, +<i>De corporis dotibus</i>, <i>De Valetudinis cura</i>, <i>De Hortensibus</i>, +<i>De Bellicis</i>, and finally a heading <i>Promiscua</i>. It may +therefore be conceived that it is not easy to find +any particular <i>dictio</i>. Horman was originally a Cambridge +man; but, according to Wood, he was elected +a Fellow of New College, Oxford, in 1477, the +very year in which Caxton printed his first book +in England, and in this connexion it is interesting to +find among the illustrative sentences in the <i>Vulgaria</i>, +this reference to the new art (sign. Oij): ‘The prynters +haue founde a crafte to make bokes by brasen letters +sette in ordre by a frame,’ which is thus latinized: +‘Chalcographi artem excogitauerunt imprimendi libros +qua literæ formis æreis excudunt.’ Of later English-Latin +dictionaries two deserve passing mention: the +<i>Abecedarium</i> of Richard Huloet or Howlet, a native +of Wisbech, which appeared in the reign of Edward VI, +in 1552, and the Alvearie of John Baret, Fellow of +Trinity College, Cambridge, published under Elizabeth +in 1573. The Abecedarium, although it gives the +Latin equivalents, may be looked upon to some extent +as an English dictionary, for many of the words have<!--Pg022--> +an English explanation, as well as a Latin rendering; +thus <i>Almesse</i>, or gift of dryncke, meate, or money, +distributed to the poore, <i>sporta</i>, <i>sportula</i>; <i>Amyable</i>, +pleasante, or hauing a good grace, <i>amabilis</i>; <i>Anabaptistes</i>, +a sorte of heretyques of late tyme in Germanye +about the yere of our Lorde God 1524.... <i>Anabaptistæ</i>.</p> + +<p>Baret's <i>Alvearie</i> of 1573 has been justly styled ‘one +of the most quaint and charming of all the early +Dictionaries.’ In his ‘Prefatory Address to the Reader’ +the author tells, in fine Elizabethan prose, both how +his book came into existence, and why he gave it +its curious name:—</p> + +<blockquote> +<p>About eighteene yeeres agone, hauing pupils at Cambridge +studious of the Latine tongue, I vsed them often to write Epistles +and Theames together, and dailie to translate some peece of +English into Latine, for the more speedie attaining of the same. +And after we had a little begun, perceiuing what great trouble +it was to come running to me for euerie worde they missed, +knowing then of no other Dictionarie to helpe vs, but Sir Thomas +Eliots Librarie, which was come out a little before; I appointed +them certaine leaues of the same booke euerie daie to write the +english before the Latin, & likewise to gather a number of fine +phrases out of Cicero, Terence, Cæsar, Liuie, &c. & to set them +vnder seuerall titles, for the more readie finding them againe at +their neede. Thus, within a yeere or two, they had gathered +together a great volume, which (for the apt similitude betweene +the good Scholers and diligent Bees in gathering their waxe and +honie into their Hiue) I called then their <i>Aluearie</i>, both for +a memoriall by whom it was made, and also by this name to +incourage other to the like diligence, for that they should not see +their worthie praise for the same, vnworthilie drowned in obliuion. +Not long after, diuers of our friends borrowing this our worke +which we had thus contriued & wrought onelie for our owne +priuate vse, often and many waies moued me to put it in print for +the common profet of others, and the publike propagation of the +Latine tongue.</p> +</blockquote> + +<p>But when Baret at length resolved to comply with<!--Pg023--> +this suggestion, there were many difficulties to be +overcome, the expense of the work being not the +least:—</p> + +<blockquote> +<p>And surelie, had not the right honourable Sir Thomas Smith +knight, principall Secretarie to the Queenes Maiestie, that noble +Theseus of learning, and comfortable Patrone to all Students, and +the right Worshipfull M. Nowell, Deane of Pawles, manie waies +encouraged me in this wearie worke (the charges were so great, +and the losse of my time so much grieued me) I had neuer bene +able alone to haue wrestled against so manie troubles, but long ere +this had cleane broken off our worke begun, and cast it by for +euer.</p> +</blockquote> + +<p>Between the dates of the <i>Abecedarium</i> and the +<i>Alvearie</i>, Peter Levins, Fellow of Magdalen College, +Oxford, published, in 1570, the first essay at an +English Riming Dictionary, the <i>Manipulus Vocabulorum</i>, +or Handful of Vocables, an original copy of which is +in the Bodleian Library; it was reprinted for the +Early English Text Society in 1867 by Mr. H. B. +Wheatley. The English words are arranged in order +of their terminations, and each is furnished with a +Latin equivalent.</p> + +<p>Of all the works which we have yet considered, +Latin was an essential element: whether the object +was, as in the glossaries and vocabularies before the +fifteenth century, to explain the Latin words themselves, +or as in the <i>Promptorium</i> and <i>Catholicon</i>, the <i>Abecedarium</i> +and the <i>Alvearie</i>, and other works of the +sixteenth century, to render English words into Latin. +But a new stage of development was marked by the +appearance of dictionaries of English with another +modern language. In 1521, the ‘Introductory to write<!--Pg024--> +and to pronounce Frenche,’ by Alexander Barclay, +author of the ‘Ship of Fooles,’ was issued from the +press of Robert Coplande; and about 1527 Giles du +Guez or du Wes (anglicized Dewes), French teacher +to the Lady Mary, afterwards Queen Mary, published +his ‘Introductorie for to lerne to rede, to pronounce +and to speke French trewly.’ In addition to grammatical +rules and dialogues, it contains a select vocabulary +English and French. In 1514, Mary Tudor, younger +sister of Henry VIII, became the unwilling bride of +Louis XII of France. To initiate the princess in her +husband's tongue, John Palsgrave, a native of London +and graduate of Cambridge, who had subsequently +studied in Paris, was chosen as her tutor, and accompanied +her to France. For her use Palsgrave prepared +his celebrated <i>Esclarcissement de la Langue Françoyse</i>, +which he subsequently revised and published in 1530, +after his return to England, where he was incorporated +M.A. at Oxford. The <i>Esclarcissement</i> is a famous +book, at once grammar and vocabulary, and may be +considered as the earliest dictionary of a modern +language, in French as well as in English. It was +reprinted in 1852 at the expense of the French +Government in the series of publications entitled +‘Collection de documents inédits sur l'histoire de +France, publiés par les soins du Ministre de l'Instruction +Publique, Deuxième Série—Histoire des +Lettres et des Sciences.’ It is a trite saying that +‘they do these things better in France’; but it is, +nevertheless, sometimes true. Amid all the changes +of government which France has seen in modern<!--Pg025--> +times, it has never been forgotten that the history +of the French language, and of French letters and +French science, is part of the history of France; the +British government has not even now attained to +the standpoint of recognizing this: among the historical +documents published under the direction of +the authorities of the Record Office, there is no series +illustrating the history of the language, the literature, +or the science of England.</p> + +<p>Next to French, the continental languages most +important to Englishmen in the sixteenth century, +were Italian and Spanish, of both of which, accordingly, +dictionaries were published before the end +of the century<span class="fnmark"><a href="#fntext7" name="fnmark7" id="fnmark7">[7]</a></span>. In 1599 Richard Percevall, Gent., +published his dictionary in Spanish and English; and +in the same year ‘resolute John Florio’ (who in his +youth resided in Worcester Place, Oxford, and was +matriculated at Magdalen College in 1581) brought out +his Italian-English Dictionary, the <i>World of Words</i>, +which he re-published in a much enlarged form in +1611, with dedication to the Queen of James I, as +<i>Queen Anna's New World of Words</i>. This year, +also, Randall Cotgrave published his famous French-English +Dictionary, which afterwards passed through<!--Pg026--> +so many editions. In the absence as yet of any +merely English dictionary, the racy English vocabulary +of Florio and Cotgrave is of exceeding value, and +has been successfully employed in illustrating the +contemporary language of Shakspere, to whom Florio, +patronized as he was by the Earls of Southampton and +Pembroke, was probably personally known. Thus, the +same year which saw England provided with the version +of the Bible which was to be so intimately identified +with the language of the next three centuries, saw her +also furnished with adequate dictionaries of French, +Italian, and Spanish; and, in 1617, a still more ambitious +work was accomplished by John Minsheu +in the production of a polyglot dictionary of English +with ten other languages, British or Welsh, Low +Dutch, High Dutch, French, Italian, Spanish, Portuguese, +Latin, Greek, and Hebrew, which he entitled +‘Ηγεμων εις +τας γλωσσας, +id est <i>Ductor in Linguas</i>, the +Guide into Tongues.’</p> + +<p>But though in these works there is necessarily +contained much of the material of an English dictionary, +so that we can from them recover most of +the current vocabulary, no one appears before the +end of the sixteenth century to have felt that Englishmen +could want a dictionary to help them to the +knowledge and correct use of their own language. +That language was either an in-born faculty, or it +was inhaled with their native air, or imbibed with +their mothers' milk; how could they need a book +to teach them to speak their mother-tongue? To +the scholars of the Renascence the notion would<!--Pg027--> +have seemed absurd—as absurd as it has seemed to +some of their descendants in the nineteenth century, +that an English grammar-school or an English university +should trouble itself about such aboriginal +products of the English skull, as English language +and literature. But by the end of the sixteenth +century, as by the end of the nineteenth, there was +a moving of the waters: the Renascence of ancient +learning had itself brought into English use thousands +of learned words, from Latin, Greek, Hebrew, Arabic, +and other languages, ‘ink-horn terms,’ as they were +called by Bale and by Puttenham, unknown to, and +not to be imbibed from, mother or grandmother. A +work exhibiting the spelling, and explaining the +meaning, of these new-fangle ‘hard words’ was the +felt want of the day; and the first attempt to supply +it marks, on the whole, the most important point in +the evolution of the modern English Dictionary.</p> + +<p>In 1604, Robert Cawdrey, who had been a schoolmaster +at Okeham, and afterwards at Coventry, published +a modest octavo of 120 pages, 5½ inches by 3½, +calling itself <i>The Table Alphabeticall of Hard Words</i>, +in which he set forth the proper spelling and meaning +of some 3,000 of these learned terms; his work +reached a third edition in 1612<span class="fnmark"><a href="#fntext8" name="fnmark8" id="fnmark8">[8]</a></span>. In 1616, Dr. John +Bullokar, then resident in Chichester, followed with +a work of the same kind and size, named by him +<i>An English Expositor</i>, of which numerous editions<!--Pg028--> +came out, one as late as 1684. And in 1623 appeared +the work which first assumed the title of ‘The +English Dictionarie,’ by H.C., Gent. H.C., we learn +from the dedication, was Henry Cockeram, to whom +John Ford the dramatist addressed the following congratulatory +lines:—</p> + +<blockquote> +<p><i>To my industrious friend, the Author of this English Dictionarie</i>,<br /> +MR. HENRY COCKRAM OF EXETER.</p> + +<div class="poem"> +<p>Borne in the West? liue there? so far from Court?</p> +<p>From Oxford, Cambridge, London? yet report</p> +<p>(Now in these daies of Eloquence) such change</p> +<p>Of words? vnknown? vntaught? tis new and strange.</p> +<p>Let Gallants therefore skip no more from hence</p> +<p>To Italic, France, Spaine, and with expence</p> +<p>Waste time and faire estates, to learne new fashions</p> +<p>Of complementall phrases, soft temptations</p> +<p>To glorious beggary: Here let them hand</p> +<p>This Booke; here studie, reade, and vnderstand:</p> +<p>Then shall they find varietie at Home,</p> +<p>As curious as at Paris, or at Rome.</p> +<p>For my part I confesse, hadst not thou writ,</p> +<p>I had not beene acquainted with more wit</p> +<p>Than our old English taught; but now I can</p> +<p>Be proud to know I have a Countryman</p> +<p>Hath strugled for a fame, and what is more,</p> +<p>Gain'd it by paths of Art, vntrod before.</p> +<p>The benefit is generall; the crowne</p> +<p>Of praise particular, and thats <i>thine owne</i>.</p> +<p>What should I say? thine owne deserts inspire thee,</p> +<p>Twere base to enuie, I must then admire thee.</p> +</div> + +<p>A friend and louer of thy paines,<br /> +IOHN FORD.</p> +</blockquote> + +<p>And a deeply interesting little book is this diminutive +ancestor of the modern English Dictionary, to describe +which adequately would take far more time than the +limits of this lecture afford. It is divided into three +parts: Part I contains the hard words with their<!--Pg029--> +explanation in ordinary language; and instructive it is +to see what words were then considered hard and +unknown. Many of them certainly would be so still: +as, for example, <i>abgregate</i>, ‘to lead out of the flock’; +<i>acersecomick</i>, ‘one whose hair was never cut’; <i>adcorporated</i>, +‘married’; <i>adecastick</i>, ‘one that will do just +howsoever’; <i>bubulcitate</i>, ‘to cry like a cow-boy’; <i>collocuplicate</i>, +‘to enrich’—concerning which we wonder who +used them, or where Cockeram found them; but we +are surprised to find among these hard words <i>abandon</i>, +<i>abhorre</i>, <i>abrupt</i>, <i>absurd</i>, <i>action</i>, +<i>activitie</i>, and <i>actresse</i>, explained +as ‘a woman doer,’ for the stage actress had +not yet appeared. <i>Blunder</i>, ‘to bestir oneself,’ and +<i>Garble</i>, ‘to clense things from dust,’ remind us that +the meanings of words are subject to change. The +Second Part contains the ordinary words ‘explained’ +by their hard equivalents, and is intended to teach +a learned style. The plain man or gentlewoman may +write a letter in his or her natural language, and then +by turning up the simple words in the dictionary alter +them into their learned equivalents. Thus ‘abound’ +may be altered into <i>exuperate</i>, ‘too great plenty’ into +<i>uberty</i>, ‘he and I are of one age’ into <i>we are coetaneous</i>, +‘youthful babbling’ into <i>juvenile inaniloquence</i>—a useful +expression to hurl at an opponent in the Oxford +Union.</p> + +<p>The last part is the most entertaining of all: it is +headed ‘The Third Part, treating of Gods and Goddesses, +Men and Women, Boyes and Maides, Giants +and Diuels, Birds and Beasts, Monsters and Serpents, +Wells and Riuers, Herbes, Stones, Trees, Dogges,<!--Pg030--> +Fishes, and the like’; it is a key to the allusions +to classical, historical, mythological, and other marvellous +persons, animals, and things, to be met with +in polite literature. A good example of its contents +is the well-known article on the <i>Crocodile</i>:—</p> + +<blockquote> +<p><i>Crocodile</i>, a beast hatched of an egge, yet some of them grow to +a great bignesse, as 10. 20. or 30. foot in length: it hath cruell teeth +and scaly back, with very sharpe clawes on his feete: if it see +a man afraid of him, it will eagerly pursue him, but on the +contrary, if he be assaulted he wil shun him. Hauing eaten +the body of a man, it will weepe ouer the head, but in fine eate the +head also: thence came the Prouerb, he shed Crocodile teares, +viz., fayned teares.</p> +</blockquote> + +<p>Appreciation of Cockeram's ‘Dictionarie’ was marked +by the numerous editions through which it passed +down as late as 1659. Meanwhile Thomas Blount, +Barrister of the Inner Temple, and correspondent of +Anthony à Wood, was devoting the leisure hours +of twenty years to his ‘<i>Glossographia</i>: or a Dictionary +interpreting all such hard words, whether Hebrew, +Greek, Latin,’ etc., ‘as are now used in our refined +English Tongue,’ of which the first edition saw the +light in 1656.</p> + +<p>I suppose it is a truism, that the higher position +now taken by English studies, is intimately interwoven +with the advances which have been made during the +last quarter of a century in the higher education of +women, and that but for the movement to let women +share in the advantages of a university education, +it is doubtful whether the nineteenth century would +have witnessed the establishment of a School of +English Language and Literature at Oxford. In connexion<!--Pg031--> +with this it is a noteworthy fact, that the +preparation of these early seventeenth century English +dictionaries was also largely due to a consideration +of the educational wants of women. The ‘Table +Alphabeticall’ of Robert Cawdrey, which was dedicated +to five ‘right honourable, Worshipfull, vertuous, and +godlie Ladies<span class="fnmark"><a href="#fntext9" name="fnmark9" id="fnmark9">[9]</a></span>,’ the sisters of his former pupil, Sir +James Harrington, Knight, bears on its title-page that it +is ‘gathered for the benefit and help of Ladies, Gentlewomen, +or any other vnskilfull persons.’ Bullokar's +<i>Expositor</i> was dedicated ‘to the Right Honorable and +Vertvovs his Singvlar Good Ladie, the Ladie Jane +Viscountesse Mountague,’ under whose patronage he +hoped to see the work ‘perhaps gracefully admitted +among greatest Ladies and studious Gentlewomen, +to whose reading (I am made belieue) it will not prooue +altogether vngratefull.’ In similar words, the title-page +of Cockeram's Dictionary proclaims its purpose +of ‘Enabling as well Ladies and Gentlewomen ... as +also Strangers of any Nation to the vnderstanding +of the more difficult Authors already printed in our +Language, and the more speedy attaining of an elegant +perfection of the English tongue, both in reading, +speaking, and writing.’ And Thomas Blount, setting +forth the purpose of his <i>Glossographia</i>, says, in words +of which one seems to have heard an echo in reference<!--Pg032--> +to an English School in this University, ‘It is chiefly +intended for the more-knowing Women, and less-knowing +Men; or indeed for all such of the unlearned, +who can but finde in an Alphabet the word they understand +not.’</p> + +<p>It is noticeable that all these references to the needs +of women disappear from the later editions, and are +wanting in later dictionaries after 1660; whether this +was owing to the fact that the less-knowing women +had now come upsides with the more-knowing men; +or that with the Restoration, female education went +out of fashion, and women sank back again into elegant +illiteracy, I leave to the historian to discover; I only, +as a lexicographer, record the fact that from the +Restoration the dictionaries are silent about the education +of women, till we pass the Revolution settlement +and reach the Age of Queen Anne, when J.K. in +1702 tells us that his dictionary is ‘chiefly designed +for the benefit of young Scholars, Tradesmen, Artificers, +and the female sex, who would learn to spell +truely.’</p> + +<p>Blount's <i>Glossographia</i> went through many editions +down to 1707; but two years after its appearance, +Edward Phillips, the son of Milton's sister Anne, published +his <i>New World of Words</i>, which Blount with +some reason considered to be largely plagiarized from +his book. He held his peace, however, until Phillips +brought out a Law-Dictionary or <i>Nomothetes</i>, also largely +copied from his own <i>Nomo-lexicon</i>, when he could +refrain himself no longer, and burst upon the world +with his indignant pamphlet, ‘A World of Errors<!--Pg033--> +discovered in the New World of Words, and in +Nomothetes or the Interpreter,’ in which he exhibits +the proofs of Phillips's cribbing, and makes wild sport +of the cases in which his own errors and misprints +had either been copied or muddled by his plagiarist. +The latter did not vouchsafe a reply; he knew a better +plan; he quietly corrected in his next edition the +mistakes which Blount had so conveniently pointed +out, and his ‘New World of Words,’ furnished with +an engraved frontispiece, containing views of Oxford +and Cambridge, and portraits of some Oxford and +Cambridge scholars, lived on in successive editions +as long as Blount's.</p> + +<p>Time and space forbid me even to recount the +later dictionaries of this class and period; we need +only mention that of Elisha Coles, a chorister and +subsequently matriculated student of Magdalen College +(of which his uncle, Elisha Coles, was steward under +the Commonwealth), a meritorious work which passed +through numerous editions down to 1732; and that +of Edward Cocker, the celebrated arithmetician and +writing-master of St. George's, Southwark, by whom +people still sometimes asseverate ‘according to Cocker.’ +This was published after his death, ‘from the author's +correct copy,’ by John Hawkins, in 1704, with a portrait +of the redoubtable Cocker himself in flowing +wig and gown, and the following lines:—</p> + +<blockquote> +<div class="poem"> +<p>COCKER, who in fair writing did excell,</p> +<p>And in Arithmetic perform'd as well,</p> +<p>This necessary work took next in hand,</p> +<p>That Englishmen might English understand.</p> +</div> +</blockquote> + +<!--Pg034--> + +<p>The last edition of Phillips' <i>New World of Words</i> +was edited after his death, with numerous additions, +by John Kersey, son of John Kersey the mathematician. +Two years later Kersey threw the materials +into another form and published it in an octavo, as +Kersey's ‘<i>Dictionarium Anglo-Britannicum</i>, or a General +English Dictionary,’ of which three editions appeared +before 1721. In this work there are included a considerable +number of obsolete words, chiefly from +Spenser and his contemporaries, marked O., and in +some cases erroneously explained. Professor Skeat +has pointed out that this was the source of Chatterton's +Elizabethan vocabulary, and that he took the +obsolete words, which he attributed to Rowley, +erroneous explanations and all, direct from Kersey's +Dictionary.</p> + +<p>More than 100 years had now elapsed since Robert +Cawdrey prepared his ‘Table Alphabeticall,’ and +nearly a century since the work of Cockeram; and +all the dictionaries which had meanwhile appeared, +although their size had steadily increased, were, in +purpose and fact, only what these works had been—Vocabularies +of ‘Hard Words,’ not of words in +general. The notion that an English Dictionary ought +to contain <i>all</i> English words had apparently as yet +occurred to no one; at least no one had proposed +to carry the idea into practice. But this further step +in the evolution of the modern dictionary was now +about to be made, and the man who made it was +one of the most deserving in the annals of English +lexicography. We now, looking back on the eighteenth<!--Pg035--> +century, associate it chiefly with the work of Dr. +Johnson; but down beyond the middle of that century, +and to the man in the street much later, by far the +best-known name in connexion with dictionaries was +that of NATHANAEL BAILEY. An advertisement appended +to the first edition of his Dictionary runs +thus: ‘Youth Boarded, and taught the Hebrew, +Greek, and Latin languages, in a Method more Easy +and Expedient than is common; also, other School-learning, +by the <i>Author</i> of this <i>Dictionary</i>, to be +heard of at Mr. Batley's, Bookseller, at the Sign of +the Dove in Paternoster Row.’ Bailey was the author +or editor of several scholarly works; but, for us, his +great work was his <i>Universal Etymological English +Dictionary</i>, published in 1721. In this he aimed at +including all English words; yet not for the mere +boast of ‘completeness,’ but for a practical purpose. +The dictionary was not merely explanatory, it was +also etymological; and though Englishmen might not +need to be told the meaning of <i>man</i> or <i>woman</i>, <i>dog</i> +or <i>cat</i><span class="fnmark"><a href="#fntext10" name="fnmark10" id="fnmark10">[10]</a></span>, they might want a hint as to their derivation. +Bailey had hit the nail aright: successive editions +were called for almost every two years during the +century; when the author died, in 1742, the tenth +edition was in the press. In that of 1731, Bailey +first marked the stress-accent, a step in the direction +of indicating pronunciation. In 1730, moreover, he +brought out with the aid of some specialists, his folio<!--Pg036--> +dictionary, the greatest lexicographical work yet undertaken +in English, into which he also introduced +diagrams and proverbs. This is an interesting book +historically, for, according to Sir John Hawkins, it +formed the working basis of Dr. Johnson<span class="fnmark"><a href="#fntext11" name="fnmark11" id="fnmark11">[11]</a></span>.</p> + +<p>Bailey had many imitators and rivals, nearly all of +whom aimed, like him, at including all words; of +these I need only name Dyche and Pardon 1735, +B.N. Defoe 1735, and Benjamin Martin 1749.</p> + +<p>During the second quarter of the century, the feeling +arose among literary men, as well as among the +booksellers, that the time had come for the preparation +of a ‘Standard Dictionary’ of the English tongue. +The language had now attained a high degree of +literary perfection; a perfect prose style, always a +characteristic of maturity, had been created; a brilliant +galaxy of dramatists and essayists—Dryden, Pope, +Addison, Steele, Swift, Defoe—had demonstrated that +English was capable of expressing clearly and elegantly +everything that needed to be expressed in +language. The age of Queen Anne was compared +to the Ciceronian age of Latin, or the age of Aristotle +and Plato in Greek. But in both these cases, as +indeed in that of every known ancient people, the +language, after reaching its acme of perfection, had +begun to decay and become debased: the golden age +of Latinity had passed into a silvern, and that into +a brazen and an iron age. The fear was that a like +fate should overtake English also; to avert which<!--Pg037--> +calamity the only remedy appeared to be to <i>fix the +language</i> by means of a ‘Standard Dictionary,’ which +should register the proper sense and use of every +word and phrase, from which no polite writer henceforth +would be expected to deviate; but, even as +generation after generation of boys and men found +their perfection of Latinity in the imitation of Cicero, +so all succeeding ages of Englishmen should find +their ideal of speech and writing fixed for ever in +this standard dictionary. To us of a later age, +with our fuller knowledge of the history of language, +and our wider experience of its fortunes, when it has +to be applied to entirely new fields of knowledge, +such as have been opened to us since the birth of +modern science, this notion seems childlike and pathetic. +But it was eminently characteristic of the eighteenth +century, an age of staid and decorous subsidence from +the energetic restlessness of the seventeenth—an age +in which men eschewed revolution and innovation, +and devoted themselves assiduously to conserve, consolidate, +polish, refine, and make the best of what +they had.</p> + +<p>In this notion of ascertaining, purifying, refining, and +fixing the language, England was only following in +the wake of some other countries. In Italy the +<i>Accademia della Crusca</i>, and in France the <i>Academie +française</i>, had been instituted for this very purpose, +and the latter had, after twenty years of preparation, +and forty more years of work, published the first edition +of a dictionary in which the French language was +(fondly and vainly) supposed to be thus ascertained,<!--Pg038--> +sifted, and fixed for ever. England had no Academy; +but it was thought that what had been done in France +by the Forty Immortals might perhaps be done here +by some leading man of letters. The idea had, it +appears, been put before Alexander Pope, and approved +by him; he is said even to have drawn up a list of +the authors whose writings might be taken as authorities +for such a dictionary; but he died in 1744, before +anything further was done. The subject seems then +to have been pressed upon the attention of SAMUEL +JOHNSON; but it was not till 1747 that the matter took +definite shape, when a syndicate of five or six London +booksellers contracted with Johnson to produce the +desired standard dictionary in the space of three +years for the sum of fifteen hundred guineas. Alas +for human calculations, and especially for those of dictionary +makers! The work occupied nearly thrice the +specified time, and, ere it was finished, the stipulated +sum had been considerably overdrawn. At length, +in 1755, appeared the two massive folios, each 17 inches +long, 10 inches wide, and 3½ inches thick, entitled +‘A | Dictionary | of the | English Language | in which | +the Words are deduced from their Originals, | and | +illustrated in their different significations | by Examples +from the Best Writers. | By Samuel Johnson.’ The +limits of this lecture do not permit me to say one +tithe of what might and ought to be said of this great +work. For the present purpose it must suffice to +point out that the special new feature which it contributed +to the evolution of the modern dictionary was +the illustration of the use of each word by a selection of<!--Pg039--> +literary quotations, and the more delicate appreciation +and discrimination of senses which this involved and +rendered possible. Only where he had no quotations +did Johnson insert words from Bailey's folio, or other +source, with <i>Dict.</i> as the authority. The literary +quotations were entirely supplied by himself from his +capacious memory, or from books specially perused +and marked by him for extraction. When he first +began his work in the room in Gough Square, his +whole time was devoted to thus reading and marking +books, from which six clerkly assistants copied the +marked quotations. The fact that many of the quotations +were inserted from memory without verification +(a practice facilitated by Johnson's plan of merely +naming the author, without specifying the particular +work quoted, or giving any reference whereby the +passage could be turned up) is undoubtedly the reason +why many of the quotations are not verbally exact. +Even so, however, they are generally adequate for the +purpose for which they are adduced, that is, they usually +contain the word for which they are quoted, and the +context is more or less accurately rendered. But in some +cases it is otherwise: Johnson's memory played him +false, and he quotes a passage for a word that it does +not actually contain. As an example, under <i>Distilment</i> +he correctly quotes from <i>Hamlet</i>, ‘And in the porches +of mine ears did pour the leperous distilment.’ But +when he reached <i>Instilment</i>, his memory became vague, +and forgetting that he had already quoted the passage +under <i>Distilment</i>, he quoted it again as ‘the leperous +instilment’—a reading which does not exist in any text<!--Pg040--> +of Shakspere, and was a mere temporary hallucination +of memory. There are some other curious mistakes, +which must, I suppose, have crept in either in the +course of transcription or of printing. As specimens +I mention two, because they have unfortunately perverted +ordinary usage. The two words <i>Coco</i> and +<i>Cocoa</i>—the former a Portuguese word<span class="fnmark"><a href="#fntext12" name="fnmark12" id="fnmark12">[12]</a></span>, naming the +<i>coco-nut</i>, the fruit of a palm-tree; the latter a latinized +form of <i>Cacao</i>, the Aztec name of a Central American +shrub, whence we have cocoa and chocolate—were +always distinguished down to Johnson's time, and +were in fact distinguished by Johnson himself in +his own writings. His account of these in the +Dictionary is quoted from Miller's <i>Gardener's Dictionary</i> +and Hill's <i>Materia Medica</i>, in which the +former is spelt <i>coco</i> and the latter <i>cacao</i> and <i>cocoa</i>. +But in Johnson's Dictionary the two words are +by some accident run together under the heading +<i>cocoa</i>, with the disastrous result that modern vulgar +usage mixes the two up, spells the <i>coco-nut</i>, ‘cocoa-’ +as if it were <i>co-cō-a</i>, and on the other hand pronounces +<i>cocōa</i>, the cacāo-bean and the beverage, as if it were +<i>coco</i>. The word <i>dispatch</i>, from It. <i>dispaccio</i>, had been +in English use for some 250 years when Johnson's +Dictionary appeared, and had been correctly spelt by +everybody (that is by everybody but the illiterate) with +<i>dis-</i>. This was Johnson's own spelling both before +and after he published the dictionary, as may be seen<!--Pg041--> +in his <i>Letters</i> edited by Dr. G. Birkbeck Hill<span class="fnmark"><a href="#fntext13" name="fnmark13" id="fnmark13">[13]</a></span>. It was +also the spelling of all the writers whom Johnson +quoted. But by some inexplicable error, the word got +into the dictionary as <i>despatch</i>, and this spelling was +even substituted in most of the quotations. I have not +found that a single writer followed this erroneous +spelling in the eighteenth century: Nelson, Wellesley, +Wellington, and all our commanders and diplomatists +wrote <i>Dispatches</i>; but since about 1820, the filtering +down of the influence of Johnson's Dictionary has +caused this erroneous spelling <i>despatch</i> to become +generally known and to be looked upon as authoritative; +so that at the present time about half our +newspapers give the erroneous form, to which, more +larmentably, the Post Office, after long retaining the +correct official tradition, recently capitulated.</p> + +<p>But despite small blemishes<span class="fnmark"><a href="#fntext14" name="fnmark14" id="fnmark14">[14]</a></span>, the dictionary was a +marvellous piece of work to accomplish in eight and +a half years; and it is quite certain that, if all the +quotations had had to be verified and furnished with<!--Pg042--> +exact references, a much longer time, or the employment +of much more collaboration, would have been +required. With much antecedent preparation, with +much skilled co-operation, and with strenuous effort, +it took more than nine years to produce the first +three letters of the alphabet of the Oxford New +English Dictionary.</p> + +<p>Johnson's great work raised English lexicography +altogether to a higher level. In his hands it became +a department of literature. The value of the Dictionary +was recognized from the first by men of letters; a +second edition was called for the same year. But it +hardly became a popular work, or even a work of +popular fame, before the present century. For forty +years after its first publication editions of Bailey followed +each other as rapidly as ever; numerous new +dictionaries of the size and character of Bailey, often +largely indebted to Johnson's definitions, appeared. +But the only new feature introduced into lexicography +between 1755 and the end of the century was the indication +of the Orthoepy or Pronunciation. From Bailey +onward, and by Johnson himself, the place of the stress-accent +had been marked, but no attempt had been +made to show how such a group of letters, for +example, as <i>colonel</i>, or <i>enough</i>, or <i>phthisical</i>, +was actually pronounced; or, to use modern phraseology, to tell +what the <i>living word</i> itself was, as distinguished +from its written symbol. This feature, so obviously +important in a language of which the spelling had +ceased to be phonetic, was added by Dr. William +Kenrick in his ‘New Dictionary’ of 1773, a little later in<!--Pg043--> +1775 by William Perry, in 1780 by Thomas Sheridan, +and especially in 1791 by John Walker, whose authority +long remained as supreme in the domain of pronunciation, +as that of Dr. Johnson in definition and +illustration; so that popular dictionaries of the first +half of the present century commonly claimed to be +abridgements of ‘Johnson's Dictionary, with, the Pronunciation +on the basis of Walker.’</p> + +<p>From the first quarter of the nineteenth century, the +lexicographical supremacy of Johnson's Dictionary was +undisputed, and eminent students of the language +busied themselves in trying, not to supersede it, but +to supplement and perfect it. Numerous supplements, +containing additional words, senses, and quotations, +were published; in 1818 a new edition, embracing +many such accessions, was prepared by the learned +Archdeacon Todd, and ‘Todd's Johnson’ continues +to be an esteemed work to our own day. But only +two independent contributions to the development of +lexicography were made in the earlier half of the +nineteenth century. These were the American work +of Noah Webster, and the English work of Dr. Charles +Richardson.</p> + +<p>Webster was a great man, a born definer of words; +he was fired with the idea that America ought to +have a dictionary of its own form of English, independent +of British usage, and he produced a work +of great originality and value. Unfortunately, like +many other clever men, he had the notion that +derivations can be elaborated from one's own consciousness +as well as definitions, and he included in<!--Pg044--> +his work so-called ‘etymologies’ of this sort. But +Etymology is simply Word-history, and Word-history, +like all other history, is a record of the <i>facts</i> which +<i>did</i> happen, not a fabric of conjectures as to what +may have happened. In the later editions of Webster, +these ‘derivations’ have been cleared out <i>en masse</i>, +and the etymology placed in the hands of men abreast +of the science of the time; and the last edition of +Webster, the <i>International</i>, is perhaps the best of +one-volume dictionaries.</p> + +<p>Richardson started on a new track altogether. Observing +how much light was shed on the meaning +of words by Johnson's quotations, he was impressed +with the notion that, in a dictionary, definitions are +unnecessary, that quotations alone are sufficient; and +he proceeded to carry this into effect by making +a dictionary without definitions or explanations of +meaning, or at least with the merest rudiments of +them, but illustrating each group of words by a large +series of quotations. In the collection of these he +displayed immense research. Going far beyond the +limits of Dr. Johnson, he quoted from authors back to +the year 1300, and probably for the first time made +Chaucer and Gower and Piers Ploughman living +names to many readers. And his special notion was +quite correct <i>in theory</i>. Quotations <i>will</i> tell the full +meaning of a word, <i>if one has enough of them</i>; but +it takes a great many to be enough, and it takes +a reader a long time to read and weigh all the +quotations, and to deduce from them the meanings +which might be put before him in a line or two.<!--Pg045--> +As a fact, while Richardson's notion was correct in +theory, mundane conditions of space and time rendered +it humanly impracticable. Nevertheless, the mass of +quotations, most of them with exact references, collected +by him, and printed under the word-groups +which they illustrated, was a service never to be +undervalued or forgotten, and his work, ‘A New +Dictionary of the English Language ... Illustrated +by Quotations from the best Authors’ by Charles +Richardson, LL.D., 1836–7, still continues to be +a valuable repertory of illustrations.</p> + +<p>Such was the position of English lexicography +in the middle of the nineteenth century, when the +late Dr. Trench, then Dean of Westminster, who +had already written several esteemed works on the +English language and the history of words, read +two papers before the Philological Society in London +‘On some Deficiencies in existing English Dictionaries,’ +in which, while speaking with much appreciation of +the labours of Dr. Johnson and his successors, he +declared that these labours yet fell far short of +giving us the ideal English Dictionary. Especially, +he pointed out that for the <i>history</i> of words and +families of words, and for the changes of form and +sense which words had historically passed through, +they gave hardly any help whatever. No one could +find out from all the dictionaries extant how long +any particular word had been in the language, which +of the many senses in which many words were used +was the original, or how or when these many senses +had been developed; nor, in the case of words<!--Pg046--> +described as <i>obsolete</i>, were we told <i>when</i> they became +obsolete or by whom they were last used. He +pointed out also that the obsolete and the rarer +words of the language had never been completely +collected; that thousands of words current in the +literature of the past three centuries had escaped the +diligence of Johnson and all his supplementers; that, +indeed, the collection of the requisite material for +a complete dictionary could not be compassed by +any one man, however long-lived and however diligent, +but must be the work of many collaborators who +would undertake systematically to read and to extract +English literature. He called upon the Philological +Society, therefore, as the only body in England then +interesting itself in the language, to undertake the +collection of materials to complete the work already +done by Bailey, Johnson, Todd, Webster, Richardson, +and others, and to prepare a supplement to all the +dictionaries, which should register all omitted words +and senses, and supply all the historical information +in which these works were lacking, and, above all, +should give quotations illustrating the first and last +appearance, and every notable point in the life-history +of every word.</p> + +<p>From this impulse arose the movement which, +widened and directed by much practical experience, has +culminated in the preparation of the Oxford English +Dictionary, ‘A new English Dictionary on Historical +Principles, founded mainly on the materials collected +by the Philological Society.’ This dictionary superadds +to all the features that have been successively<!--Pg047--> +evolved by the long chain of workers, the historical +information which Dr. Trench desiderated. It seeks +not merely to record every word that has been +used in the language for the last 800 years, with its +written form and signification, and the pronunciation +of the current words, but to furnish a biography of +each word, giving as nearly as possible the date of its +birth or first known appearance, and, in the case of +an obsolete word or sense, of its last appearance, the +source from which it was actually derived, the form +and sense with which it entered the language or is +first found in it, and the successive changes of form +and developments of sense which it has since undergone. +All these particulars are derived from historical +research; they are an induction of facts gathered by +the widest investigation of the written monuments of +the language. For the purposes of this historical +illustration more than five millions of extracts have +been made, by two thousand volunteer Readers, +from innumerable books, representing the English +literature of all ages, and from numerous documentary +records. From these, and the further researches +for which they provide a starting-point, the history of +each word is deduced and exhibited.</p> + +<p>Since the Philological Society's scheme was propounded, +several large dictionaries have been compiled, +adopting one or more of Archbishop Trench's suggestions, +and thus showing some of the minor features +of this dictionary. They have collected some of the +rare and obsolete words and senses of the past three +centuries; they have attained to greater fullness and<!--Pg048--> +exactness in exhibiting the current uses of words, +and especially of the many modern words which the +progress of physical science has called into being. +But they leave the <i>history</i> of the words themselves +where it was when Dr. Trench pointed out the +deficiencies of existing dictionaries. And their literary +illustrations of the older words are, in too many cases, +those of Dr. Johnson, copied from dictionary to dictionary +without examination or verification, and, what +is more important, without acknowledgement, so that +the reader has no warning that a given quotation is +merely second-or third-hand, and, therefore, to be +accepted with qualification<span class="fnmark"><a href="#fntext15" name="fnmark15" id="fnmark15">[15]</a></span>. The quotations in the +New English Dictionary, on the other hand, have been +supplied afresh by its army of volunteer Readers; or, +when for any reason one is adopted from a preceding +dictionary without verification, the fact is stated, both +as an acknowledgement of others' work, and as a +warning to the reader that it is given on intermediate +authority.</p> + +<p>Original work, patient induction of facts, minute +verification of evidence, are slow processes, and a work +so characterized cannot be put together with scissors +and paste, or run off with the speed of the copyist. All +the great dictionaries of the modern languages have +taken a long time to make; but the speed with which<!--Pg049--> +the New English Dictionary has now advanced nearly +to its half-way point can advantageously claim comparison +with the progress of any other great dictionary, +even when this falls far behind in historical and +inductive character.<span class="fnmark"><a href="#fntext16" name="fnmark16" id="fnmark16">[16]</a></span> Be the speed what it may, +however, there is the consideration that the work +thus done is done once for all; the structure now +reared will have to be added to, continued, and +extended with time, but it will remain, it is believed, +the great body of fact on which all future work will +be built. It is never possible to forecast the needs +and notions of those who shall come after us; but with +our present knowledge it is not easy to conceive +what new feature can now be added to English +Lexicography. At any rate, it can be maintained that +in the Oxford Dictionary, permeated as it is through +and through with the scientific method of the century, +Lexicography has for the present reached its supreme +development.</p> + +<!--Pg050--> + +<p>In the course of this lecture, it has been needful +to give so many details as to individual works, that +my audience may at times have failed ‘to see the wood +for the trees,’ and may have lost the clue of the lexicographical +evolution. Let me then in conclusion +recapitulate the stages which have been already indicated. +These are: the glossing of difficult words in +Latin manuscripts by easier Latin, and at length by +English words; the collection of the English glosses +into Glossaries, and the elaboration of Latin-English +Vocabularies; the later formation of English-Latin +Vocabularies; the production of Dictionaries of +English and another modern language; the compilation +of Glossaries and Dictionaries of ‘hard’ English +words; the extension of these by Bailey, for etymological +purposes, to include words in general; the +idea of a Standard Dictionary, and its realization by +Dr. Johnson with illustrative quotations; the notion +that a Dictionary should also show the pronunciation +of the living word; the extension of the function of +quotations by Richardson; the idea that the Dictionary +should be a biography of every word, and should set +forth every fact connected with its origin, history, and +use, on a strictly historical method. These stages +coincide necessarily with stages of our national and +literary history; the first two were already reached +before the Norman Conquest; the third followed upon +the recognition of English as the official language of +the nation, and its employment by illustrious Middle +English writers. The Dictionaries of the modern +languages were necessitated first by the fact that<!--Pg051--> +French had at length ceased to be the living tongue +of any class of Englishmen, and secondly by the other +fact that the rise of the modern languages and increasing +intercourse with the Continent made Latin no longer +sufficient as a common medium of international communication. +The consequences of the Renascence +and of the New Learning of the sixteenth century +appear in the need for the Dictionaries of Hard Words +at the beginning of the seventeenth; the literary polish +of the age of Anne begat the yearning for a standard +dictionary, and inspired the work of Johnson; the +scientific and historical spirit of the nineteenth century +has at once called for and rendered possible the +Oxford English Dictionary. Thus the evolution of +English Lexicography has followed with no faltering +steps the evolution of English History and the development +of English Literature.</p> + +<h2>FOOTNOTES:</h2> + +<p class="fntext"><span class="fnmark"><a href="#fnmark1" name="fntext1" id="fntext1">[1]</a></span> Thus the first six Latin words in A glossed are <i>apodixen</i>, <i>amineæ</i>, +<i>amites</i>, <i>arcontus</i>, <i>axungia</i>; the last six are <i>arbusta</i>, +<i>anser</i>, <i>affricus</i>, +<i>atticus</i>, <i>auiaria</i>, <i>avena</i>; mostly ‘hard’ Latin it will be perceived. The +Erfurt Glossary is, to a great extent, a duplicate of the Epinal.</p> + +<p class="fntext"><span class="fnmark"><a href="#fnmark2" name="fntext2" id="fntext2">[2]</a></span> Thus the first five Latin entries in <i>ab-</i> are <i>abminiculum</i>, +<i>abelena</i>, <i>abiecit</i>, <i>absida</i>, <i>abies</i>, and the last five +<i>aboleri</i>, <i>ab borea</i>, +<i>abiles</i>, <i>aborsus</i>, <i>absorduum</i>. To find whether a wanted word in <i>ab-</i> +occurs in this glossary, it was necessary to look through more than two +columns containing ninety-five entries.</p> + +<p class="fntext"><span class="fnmark"><a href="#fnmark3" name="fntext3" id="fntext3">[3]</a></span> An important collection of these early beginnings of lexicography in +England was made so long ago as 1857, by the late distinguished +antiquary Thomas Wright, and published as the first volume of a Library +of National Antiquities. A new edition of this with sundry emendations +and additions was prepared and published in 1884 by Professor R.F. +Wülcker of Leipzig, and the collection is now generally referred to by +scholars in German fashion under the designation of Wright-Wülcker.</p> + +<p class="fntext"><span class="fnmark"><a href="#fnmark4" name="fntext4" id="fntext4">[4]</a></span> This is the primary reason why in Middle and Modern English, unlike +what is found in German and Dutch, the terms of culture, art, science, +and philosophy, are of French or, through French, of Latin origin. The +corresponding Old English terms were forgotten during the age of +illiteracy, and when, generations later, the speaker of English came +again to deal with such subjects, he had to do like Layamon, when he +knew no longer <i>tungol-crœft</i>, and could refer to it only as ‘the +craft ihote <i>astronomie</i> in other kunnes speche.’</p> + +<p class="fntext"><span class="fnmark"><a href="#fnmark5" name="fntext5" id="fntext5">[5]</a></span> Also <i>Medulla Grammaticae</i>, or usually <i>Grammatice</i>.</p> + +<p class="fntext"><span class="fnmark"><a href="#fnmark6" name="fntext6" id="fntext6">[6]</a></span> At the end is an alphabetical list of adjectives; extending from +<i>lf</i>. 79<i>a</i>, col. 2, to 83<i>a</i>, foot.</p> + +<p class="fntext"><span class="fnmark"><a href="#fnmark7" name="fntext7" id="fntext7">[7]</a></span> It must however be mentioned that the second dictionary of English +and another modern tongue was appropriately ‘A Dictionary in Englyshe +and Welshe, moche necessary to all suche Welshemen as wil spedlye learne +the englyshe tongue, thought vnto the kynges maiestie very mete to be +sette forth to the vse of his graces subiectes in Wales, ... by Wyllyam +Salesbury.’ The colophon is ‘Imprynted at London in Foster Lane, by me +John Waley. 1547.’</p> + +<p class="fntext"><span class="fnmark"><a href="#fnmark8" name="fntext8" id="fntext8">[8]</a></span> In the Dedication he says, ‘Which worke, long ago for the most part, +was gathered by me, but lately augmented by my sonne Thomas, who now is +Schoolemaister in London.’</p> + +<p class="fntext"><span class="fnmark"><a href="#fnmark9" name="fntext9" id="fntext9">[9]</a></span> ‘To the right honourable, worshipfull, vertuous, & godlie Ladies, +the Lady Hastings, the Lady Dudley, the Lady Mountague, the Ladie +Wingfield, and the Lady Leigh, his Christian friends, <i>R.C.</i> wisheth +great prosperitie in this life, with increase of grace, and peace from +GOD our Father, through Iesus Christ our Lord and onely Sauiour.’ (A 2.)</p> + +<p class="fntext"><span class="fnmark"><a href="#fnmark10" name="fntext10" id="fntext10">[10]</a></span> His explanations of such words were curt enough: ‘<i>Cat</i>, a Creature +well known’; ‘<i>Horse</i>, a Beast well known’; ‘<i>Man</i>, a Creature endued +with Reason.’</p> + +<p class="fntext"><span class="fnmark"><a href="#fnmark11" name="fntext11" id="fntext11">[11]</a></span> ‘An interleaved copy of Bailey's dictionary in folio he made the +repository of the several articles.’ <i>Works of J.</i>, 1787, I. 175.</p> + +<p class="fntext"><span class="fnmark"><a href="#fnmark12" name="fntext12" id="fntext12">[12]</a></span> Pg. <i>coco</i>, a grinning mask, applied to the coco-nut because of the +three holes and central protuberance at its apex, suggesting two eyes, a +mouth, and nose.</p> + +<p class="fntext"><span class="fnmark"><a href="#fnmark13" name="fntext13" id="fntext13">[13]</a></span> The following are examples of his own practice: <i>The Rambler</i> +(1751), No. 153, par. 3, ‘I was in my eighteenth year dispatched to the +university.’ <i>Ibid.</i>, No. 161, par. 4, ‘I ... soon dispatched a bargain +on the usual terms.’ <i>Letter to Mrs. Thrale</i>, May 6, 1776, ‘We +dispatched our journey very peaceably.’</p> + +<p class="fntext"><span class="fnmark"><a href="#fnmark14" name="fntext14" id="fntext14">[14]</a></span> Among such must be reckoned the treatment of words in the +explanation of which Johnson showed political or personal animus or +whimsical humour, as in the well-known cases of <i>whig</i>, <i>tory</i>, <i>excise</i>, +<i>pension</i>, <i>pensioner</i>, <i>oats</i>, <i>Grub-street</i>, +<i>lexicographer</i> (see Boswell's +<i>Johnson</i>, ed. Birkbeck Hill, i. 294); although it must be admitted that +these have come to be among the famous spots of the Dictionary, and have +given gentle amusement to thousands, to whom it has been a delight to +see ‘human nature’ too strong for lexicographic decorum.</p> + +<p class="fntext"><span class="fnmark"><a href="#fnmark15" name="fntext15" id="fntext15">[15]</a></span> In some cases, long Lists of the Authors, from whose works ‘the +illustrative quotations have been selected,’ are given, without the +statement that many of those quotations have not actually been selected +from the authors and works named, but have merely been annexed from +Johnson or one of his supplementers.</p> + +<p class="fntext"><span class="fnmark"><a href="#fnmark16" name="fntext16" id="fntext16">[16]</a></span> The famous <i>Deutsches Wörterbuch</i> of Jacob and Wilhelm Grimm, after +many years of preparation, began to be printed in 1852; Jacob Grimm +himself died in 1863, in the middle of the letter F; the work is +expected to reach the end of S by the close of the century. The great +<i>Woordenboek der Nederlandsche Taal</i> was commenced in 1852; its first +volume, <i>A–Ajuin</i>, was published in 1882, and it is not yet quite +half-finished. Of the new edition of the <i>Vocabolario della Crusca</i>, +which is to a certain extent on historical principles, Vol. I, +containing A, was published in 1863, and Vol. VIII, completing I, in +1899; at least twenty-five more years will be required to reach Z. None +of these works embraces so long a period of the language, or is so +strictly historical in method, as the New English Dictionary. Rather are +they, like Littré's great <i>Dictionnaire de la Langue Française</i>, +Dictionaries of the modern language, with the current words more or less +historically treated.</p> + + + + + + + + +<pre> + + + + + +End of the Project Gutenberg EBook of The evolution of English lexicography +by James Augustus Henry Murray + +*** END OF THIS PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK EVOLUTION OF ENGLISH LEXICOGRAPHY *** + +***** This file should be named 11694-h.htm or 11694-h.zip ***** +This and all associated files of various formats will be found in: + https://www.gutenberg.org/1/1/6/9/11694/ + +Produced by Brendan Lane and the Online Distributed Proofreading Team. + +Updated editions will replace the previous one--the old editions +will be renamed. + +Creating the works from public domain print editions means that no +one owns a United States copyright in these works, so the Foundation +(and you!) can copy and distribute it in the United States without +permission and without paying copyright royalties. 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You may copy it, give it away or +re-use it under the terms of the Project Gutenberg License included +with this eBook or online at www.gutenberg.org + + +Title: The evolution of English lexicography + +Author: James Augustus Henry Murray + +Release Date: March 24, 2004 [EBook #11694] + +Language: English + +Character set encoding: ASCII + +*** START OF THIS PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK EVOLUTION OF ENGLISH LEXICOGRAPHY *** + + + + +Produced by Brendan Lane and the Online Distributed Proofreading Team. + + + + +THE ROMANES LECTURE +1900 + +The Evolution of English Lexicography + +BY JAMES A.H. MURRAY +M.A., LL.D., D.C.L., PH.D. + +DELIVERED IN THE SHELDONIAN THEATRE, OXFORD, JUNE 22, 1900 + + + + +THE EVOLUTION OF ENGLISH LEXICOGRAPHY + + +When the 'Act to facilitate the provision of Allotments for the +Labouring Classes' was before the House of Commons in 1887, a +well-known member for a northern constituency asked the Minister who +had charge of the measure for a definition of the term _allotment_, +which occurred so often in the Bill. The Minister somewhat brusquely +told his interrogator to 'look in the Dictionary,' at which there was, +according to the newspapers, 'a laugh.' The member warmly protested +that, being called upon to consider a measure dealing with things +therein called 'Allotments', a term not known to English Law, nor +explained in the Bill itself, he had a right to ask for a definition. +But the only answer he received was 'Johnson's Dictionary! Johnson's +Dictionary!' at which, according to the newspapers, the House gave +'another laugh,' and the interrogator subsided. The real humour of the +situation, which was unfortunately lost upon the House of Commons, +was, that as agricultural allotments had not been thought of in the +days of Dr. Johnson, no explanation of the term in this use is to be +found in Johnson's Dictionary; as, however, this happened to be +unknown, alike to the questioner and to the House, the former missed a +chance of 'scoring' brilliantly, and the House the chance of a third +laugh, this time at the expense of the Minister. But the replies of +the latter are typical of the notions of a large number of persons, +who habitually speak of 'the Dictionary,' just as they do of 'the +Bible,' or 'the Prayer-book,' or 'the Psalms'; and who, if pressed as +to the authorship of these works, would certainly say that 'the +Psalms' were composed by David, and 'the Dictionary' by Dr. Johnson. + +I have met persons of intelligence who supposed that if Dr. Johnson +was not the sole author of 'the Dictionary'--a notion which, in view +of the 'pushfulness' wherewith, in recent times, Dictionaries, +American and other, have been pressed upon public notice, is now not +so easily tenable--he was, at least, the 'original author,' from whose +capacious brain that work first emanated. Whereas, in truth, Dr. +Johnson had been preceded by scores of workers, each of whom had added +his stone or stones to the lexicographic cairn, which had already +risen to goodly proportions when Johnson made to it his own splendid +contribution. + +For, the English Dictionary, like the English Constitution, is the +creation of no one man, and of no one age; it is a growth that has +slowly developed itself adown the ages. Its beginnings lie far back in +times almost prehistoric. And these beginnings themselves, although +the English Dictionary of to-day is lineally developed from them, were +neither Dictionaries, nor even English. As to their language, they +were in the first place and principally Latin: as to their substance, +they consisted, in large part at least, of _glosses_. They were Latin, +because at the time to which we refer, the seventh and eighth +centuries of our era, Latin was in Western Europe the only language of +books, the learning of Latin the portal to all learning. And they were +_glosses_ in this wise: the possessor of a Latin book, or the member +of a religious community which were the fortunate possessors of +half-a-dozen books, in his ordinary reading of this literature, here +and there came across a difficult word which lay outside the familiar +Latin vocabulary. When he had ascertained the meaning of this, he +often, as a help to his own memory, and a friendly service to those +who might handle the book after him, wrote the meaning over the word +in the original text, in a smaller hand, sometimes in easier Latin, +sometimes, if he knew no Latin equivalent, in a word of his own +vernacular. Such an explanatory word written over a word of the text +is a _gloss_. Nearly all the Latin MSS. of religious or practical +treatises, that have come down to us from the Middle Ages, contain +examples of such glosses, sometimes few, sometimes many. It may +naturally be supposed that this glossing of MSS. began in Celtic and +Teutonic, rather than in Romanic lands. In the latter, the old Latin +was not yet so dead, nor the vulgar idioms that were growing out of +it, as yet so distinct from it, as to render the glossing of the one +by the other needful. The relation of Latin to, say, the Romanic of +Provence, was like that of literary English to Lancashire or Somerset +dialect; no one thinks of glossing a literary English book by +Somersetshire word-forms; for, if he can read at all, it is the +literary English that he does read. So if the monk of Burgundy or +Provence could read at all, it was the Book-Latin that he could and +did read. But, to the Teuton or the Celt, Latin was an entirely +foreign tongue, the meaning of whose words he could not guess by any +likeness to his own; by him Latin had been acquired by slow and +painful labour, and to him the gloss was an important aid. To the +modern philologist, Teutonic or Celtic, these glosses are very +precious; they have preserved for us a large number of Old English, +Old Irish, Old German words that occur nowhere else, and which, but +for the work of the old glossators, would have been lost for ever. No +inconsiderable portion of the oldest English vocabulary has been +recovered entirely from these interlinear glosses; and we may +anticipate important additions to that vocabulary when Professor +Napier gives us the volume in which he has been gathering up all the +unpublished glosses that yet remain in MSS. + +In process of time it occurred to some industrious reader that it +would be a useful exercise of his industry, to collect out of all the +manuscripts to which he had access, all the glosses that they +contained, and combine them in a list. In this compact form they could +be learned by heart, thus extending the vocabulary at his command, and +making him independent of the interlinear glosses, and they could also +be used in the school-teaching of pupils and neophytes, so as sensibly +to enlarge their stock of Latin words and phrases. A collection of +glosses, thus copied out and thrown together into a single list, +constituted a _Glossarium_ or _Glossary_; it was the remote precursor +of the seventeenth-century 'Table Alphabetical,' or 'Expositor of Hard +Words.' + +Such was one of the fountain-heads of English lexicography; the other +is to be found in the fact that in those distant days, as in our own, +the learning of Latin was the acquisition of a foreign tongue which +involved the learning of a grammar and of a vocabulary. Both grammar +and vocables were probably in the main communicated by oral teaching, +by the living voice of the master, and were handed down by oral +tradition from generation to generation. The stock of vocables was +acquired by committing to memory classified lists of words; lists of +names of parts of the body, lists of the names of domestic animals, of +wild beasts, of fishes, of trees, of heavenly bodies, of geographical +features, of names of relationship and kindred, of ranks and orders of +men, of names of trades, of tools, of arms, of articles of clothing, +of church furniture, of diseases, of virtues and vices, and so on. +Such lists of vocables, with their meaning in the vulgar tongue, were +also at times committed to paper or parchment leaves, and a collection +of these constituted a _Vocabularium_ or _Vocabulary_. + +In their practical use the Vocabulary and the Glossary fulfilled +similar offices; and so they were often combined; the possessor of a +Vocabulary enlarged it by the addition of a Glossary, which he or some +one before him had copied out and collected from the glossed +manuscripts of his bibliotheca. He extended it by copying into it +vocabularies and glossaries borrowed from other scholars; he lent his +own collection to be similarly copied by others. Several such +collections exist formed far back in Old English times, the composite +character of which, partly glossary, partly vocabulary, reveals itself +upon even a cursory examination. + +As these manuscript lists came to be copied and re-copied, it was seen +that their usefulness would be increased by putting the words and +phrases into alphabetical order, whereby a particular word could be +more readily found than by looking for it in a promiscuous list of +some hundreds or thousands of words. The first step was to bring +together all the words having the same first letter. The copyist +instead of transcribing the glossary right on as it stood, extracted +first all the words beginning with A; then he went through it again +picking out all the words beginning with B; then a third time for +those with C, and so on with D, E, and the rest, till he had +transcribed the whole, and his copy was no longer in the fortuitous +disorder of the original, but in what we call _first-letter_ order. + +A still later scribe making a copy of this vocabulary, or possibly +combining two or three lists already in first-letter order, carried +the alphabetical arrangement one stage further; instead of +transcribing the A-words as they stood, he went through them, picking +out first those that began with Aa-, then those in Ab-, then those in +Ac-, and so on, to Az. Then he did the same with the B-words, picking +out first all in Ba-, then Be-, Bi-, Bl-, Bo-, Br-, Bu-, By-; and so +exhausting the B-words. Thus, at length, in this second recension, the +Vocabulary stood, not yet completely alphabetical, but alphabetized as +far as the second letter of each word. + +All these stages can actually be seen in four of the most ancient +glossaries of English origin that have come down to us, known +respectively, from the libraries to which they now belong, as the +Leiden, the Epinal, the Erfurt, and the Corpus (the last at Corpus +Christi College, Cambridge). The Leiden Glossary represents the +earliest stage of such a work, being really, in the main, a collection +of smaller glossaries, or rather sets of glosses, each set entered +under the name of the treatise from which it was extracted, the words +in each being left in the order in which they happened to come in the +treatise or work, without any further arrangement, alphabetical or +other. It appears also to incorporate in a final section some small +earlier vocabularies or lists of names of animals and other classes of +things. In order to discover whether any particular word occurs in +this glossary, the whole work from beginning to end must be looked +through. The first advance upon this is seen in the Epinal Glossary, +which uses part at least of the materials of the Leiden, incorporating +with them many others. This glossary has advanced to _first-letter_ +order: all the A-words come together, followed by all the B-words, and +so on to Z, but there is no further arrangement under the individual +letters[1]. There are nearly fourteen columns of words beginning with +A, containing each about forty entries; the whole of these 550 entries +must be looked through to see if a given word occurs in this glossary. +The third stage is represented by the Corpus Glossary, which contains +the materials of its predecessors, and a great deal more, and in which +the alphabetical arrangement has been carried as far as the second +letter of each word: thus the first ninety-five words explained begin +with Ab-, and the next seventy-eight with Ac-, and so on, but the +alphabetization goes no further[2]; the glossary is in _second-letter_ +order. In at least one glossary of the tenth century, contained in a +MS. of the British Museum (Harl. 3376), the alphabetical arrangement +has been carried as far as the third letter, beyond which point it +does not appear to have advanced. + +The MS. of the Corpus Glossary dates to the early part of the eighth +century; the Epinal and Erfurt--although the MS. copies that have come +down to us are not older, or not so old--must from their nature go +back as glossaries to a still earlier date, and the Leiden to an +earlier still; so that we carry back these beginnings of lexicography +in England to a time somewhere between 600 and 700 A.D., and probably +to an age not long posterior to the introduction of Christianity in +the south of England at the end of the sixth century. Many more +vocabularies were compiled between these early dates and the eleventh +century; and it is noteworthy that those ancient glossaries and +vocabularies not only became fuller and more orderly as time advanced, +but they also became more _English_. For, as I have already mentioned, +the primary purpose of the glosses was to explain difficult _Latin_ +words; this was done at first, whenever possible, by easier Latin +words; apparently, only when none such were known, was the explanation +given in the vernacular, in Old English. In the Epinal Glossary the +English words are thus relatively few. In the first page they number +thirty out of 117, and in some pages they do not amount to half that +number. In the Corpus Glossary they have become proportionally more +numerous; and in the glossaries that follow, the Latin explanations +are more and more eliminated and replaced by English ones, until the +vocabularies of the tenth and eleventh centuries, whether arranged +alphabetically or under classified headings, are truly Latin-English: +every Latin word given is explained by an English one; and we see +clearly that a new aim had gradually evolved itself; the object was no +longer to explain difficult Latin words, but to give the English +equivalents of as many words as possible, and thus practically to +provide a Latin Dictionary for the use of Englishmen[3]. + +Learning and literature, science and art, had attained to fair +proportions in England, and in the Old English tongue, when their +progress was arrested by the Norman Conquest. The Norman Conquest +brought to England law and organization, and welded the country into a +political unity; but it overthrew Old English learning and literary +culture. In literary culture the Normans were about as far behind the +people whom they conquered as the Romans were when they made +themselves masters of Greece; and it was not till some two generations +after the Conquest, that learning and literature regained in England +somewhat of the position which they had occupied two centuries +earlier. And this new literary culture was naturally confined to the +French dialect of the conquerors, which had become the language of +court and castle, of church and law, of chivalry and the chase; while +the rich and cultured tongue of Alfred and AElfric was left for +generations without literary employment, during which time it lost +nearly all its poetical, philosophical, scientific, and artistic +vocabulary, retaining only the words of common life and everyday +use[4]. And for more than 300 years after the Conquest English +lexicography stood still. Between 1066 and 1400, Wright-Wuelcker shows +only two meagre vocabularies, occupying some twenty-four columns of +his volume. One of these, of the twelfth century, is only an echo of +the earlier literary age, a copy of a pre-Conquest glossary, which +some scribe who could still read the classical tongue of the old West +Saxon Court, transliterated into the corrupted forms of his own +generation. The other is a short vocabulary of the Latin and +vernacular names of plants, a species of class-vocabulary of which +there exist several of rather early date. + +But when we reach the end of the fourteenth century, English is once +more in the ascendant. Robert of Gloucester, Robert Mannyng of Brunne, +Dan Michel of Canterbury, and Richard Rolle of Hampole, William +Langland and John Wyclif, John Gower and Geoffrey Chaucer, and many +other authors of less known or entirely unknown name, have written in +the tongue of the people; English has been sanctioned for use in the +courts of law; and, as John of Trevisa tells us, has, since the +'furste moreyn' or Great Pestilence of 1349 (which Mrs. Markham has +taught nineteenth-century historians to call the 'Black Death'), been +introduced into the grammar schools in the translation of Latin +exercises, which boys formerly rendered into French. And under these +new conditions lexicographical activity at once bursts forth with +vigour. Six important vocabularies of the fifteenth century are +printed by Wright-Wuelcker, most of them arranged, like the Old English +one of AElfric, under subject-headings; but one large one, extending to +2,500 words, entirely alphabetical. About the middle of the century, +also, was compiled the famous _Medulla Grammatices_[5], designated, +with some propriety, 'the first Latin-English Dictionary,' the +popularity of which is shown by the many manuscript copies that still +survive; while it formed the basis of the _Ortus (i.e. Hortus) +Vocabulorum_ or first printed Latin-English Dictionary, which issued +from the press of Wynkyn de Worde in 1500, and in many subsequent +editions down to 1533, as well as in an edition by Pynson in 1509. + +But all the glossaries and vocabularies as yet mentioned were +Latin-English; their primary object was not English, but the +elucidation of Latin. A momentous advance was made about 1440, when +Brother Galfridus Grammaticus--Geoffrey the Grammarian--a Dominican +friar of Lynn Episcopi in Norfolk, produced the English-Latin +vocabulary, to which he gave the name of _Promptuarium_ or +_Promptorium Parvulorum_, the Children's Store-room or Repository. + +The _Promptorium_, the name of which has now become a household word +to students of the history of English, is a vocabulary containing some +10,000 words--substantives, adjectives, and verbs--with their Latin +equivalents, which, as edited by Mr. Albert Way for the Camden Society +in 1865, makes a goodly volume. Many manuscript copies of it were made +and circulated, of which six or seven are known to be still in +existence, and after the introduction of printing it passed through +many editions in the presses of Pynson, Wynkyn de Worde, and Julian +Notary. + +Later in the same century, the year 1483 saw the compilation of a +similar, but quite independent work, which its author named the +_Catholicon Anglicum_, that is, the English Catholicon or Universal +treatise, after the name of the celebrated Latin dictionary of the +Middle Ages, the _Catholicon_ or _Summa_ of Johannes de Balbis, or +John of Genoa, made in 1286. The English _Catholicon_ was in itself a +work almost equally valuable with the _Promptorium_; but it appears +never to have attained to the currency of the _Promptorium_, which +appeared as a printed book in 1499, while the _Catholicon_ remained in +two MSS. till printed for the Early English Text Society in 1881. + +The Renascence of Ancient Learning had now reached England, and during +the sixteenth century there were compiled and published many important +Latin-English and English-Latin vocabularies and dictionaries. Among +these special mention must be made of the Dictionary of Sir Thomas +Elyot, Knight, the first work, so far as I know, which took to itself +in English what was destined to be the famous name of DICTIONARY, in +mediaeval Latin, _Dictionarius liber_, or _Dictionarium_, literally a +repertory of _dictiones_, a word originally meaning 'sayings,' but +already by the later Latin grammarians used in the sense of _verba_ or +_vocabula_ 'words.' The early vocabularies and dictionaries had many +names, often quaint and striking; thus one of _c_1420 is entitled the +_Nominale_, or Name-book; mention has already been made of the +_Medulla Grammatices_, or Marrow of Grammar, the _Ortus Vocabulorum_, +or Garden of Words, the _Promptorium Parvulorum_, and the _Catholicon +Anglicum_; later we find the _Manipulus Vocabulorum_, or Handful of +Vocables, the _Alvearie_ or Beehive, the _Abecedarium_, the +_Bibliotheca_, or Library, the _Thesaurus_, or Treasury of Words--what +Old English times would have called the _Word-hord_, the _World of +Words_, the _Table Alphabetical_, the _English Expositor_, the _Ductor +in Linguas_, or Guide to the Tongues, the _Glossographia_, the _New +World of Words_, the _Etymologicum_, the _Gazophylacium_; and it would +have been impossible to predict in the year 1538, when Sir Thomas +Elyot published his 'Dictionary,' that this name would supplant all +the others, and even take the place of the older and better-descended +word _Vocabulary_; much less that _Dictionary_ should become so much a +name to conjure with, as to be applied to works which are not +word-books at all, but reference-books on all manner of subjects, as +Chronology, Geography, Music, Commerce, Manufactures, Chemistry, or +National Biography, arranged in Alphabetical or 'Dictionary order.' +The very phrase, 'Dictionary order,' would in the first half of the +sixteenth century have been unmeaning, for all dictionaries were not +yet alphabetical. There is indeed no other connexion between a +dictionary and alphabetical order, than that of a balance of +convenience. Experience has shown that though an alphabetical order +makes the matter of a dictionary very disjointed, scattering the +terminology of a particular art, science, or subject, all over the +book, and even when related words come together, often putting the +unimportant derivative in front of the important primitive word, it is +yet that by which a word or heading can be found, with least trouble +and exercise of thought. But this experience has been only gradually +acquired; even now the native dictionaries of some Oriental languages +are often not in alphabetical order; in such a language as Chinese, +indeed, there is no alphabetical order in which to place the words, +and they follow each other in the dictionary in a purely arbitrary and +conventional fashion. In English, as we have seen, many of the +vocabularies from the eleventh to the fifteenth century, were arranged +under class-headings according to subject; and, although Sir Thomas +Elyot's Dictionary was actually in alphabetical order, that of J. +Withals, published in 1554, under the title 'A short dictionarie for +young beginners,' and with the colophon 'Thus endeth this Dictionary +very useful for Children, compiled by J. Withals,' reverts to the +older arrangement of subject-classes, as Names of things in the AEther +or skie, the xii Signes, the vii Planets, Tymes, Seasons, Other times +in the yere, the daies of the weeke, the Ayre, the viii windes, the +iiii partes of the worlde, Byrdes, Bees, Flies, and other, the Water, +the Sea, Fishes, a Shippe with other Water vessels, the earth, +Mettales, Serpents, woorms and creepinge beastes, Foure-footed +beastes, &c.[6] + +It is unnecessary in this lecture to recount even the names of the +Latin-English and English-Latin dictionaries of the sixteenth century. +It need only be mentioned that there were six successive and +successively enlarged editions of Sir Thomas Elyot; that the last +three of these were edited by Thomas Cooper, 'Schole-Maister of +Maudlens in Oxford' (the son of an Oxford tradesman, and educated as a +chorister in Magdalen College School, who rose to be Dean of Christ +Church and Vice-Chancellor of the University, and to hold successively +the episcopal sees of Lincoln and Winchester), and that Cooper, in +1565, published his great _Thesaurus Linguae Romanae et Britannicae_, +'opera et industria Thomae Cooperi Magdalenensis,' founded upon the +great French work of Robert Stephens (Estienne), the learned French +scholar and printer. Of this work Martin Marprelate says in his +_Epistle_ (Arber, p. 42), 'His Lordship of Winchester is a great +Clarke, for he hath translated his Dictionarie, called Cooper's +Dictionarie, verbatim out of Robert Stephanus his _Thesaurus_, and +ill-favoured too, they say!' This was, however, the criticism of an +adversary; Cooper had added to Stephens's work many accessions from +his editions of Sir Thomas Elyot, and other sources; his _Thesaurus_ +was the basis of later Latin-English dictionaries, and traces of it +may still be discovered in the Latin-English dictionaries of to-day. + +Of printed English-Latin works, after the _Promptorium_, one of the +earliest was the _Vulgaria_ of William Herman, Headmaster and Provost +of Eton, printed by Pynson in 1519. This is a _Dictionarium_ or _liber +dictionarius_ in the older sense, for it consists of short _dictiones_ +or sayings, maxims, and remarks, arranged under subject-headings, such +as _De Pietate_, _De Impietate_, _De corporis dotibus_, _De +Valetudinis cura_, _De Hortensibus_, _De Bellicis_, and finally a +heading _Promiscua_. It may therefore be conceived that it is not easy +to find any particular _dictio_. Horman was originally a Cambridge +man; but, according to Wood, he was elected a Fellow of New College, +Oxford, in 1477, the very year in which Caxton printed his first book +in England, and in this connexion it is interesting to find among the +illustrative sentences in the _Vulgaria_, this reference to the new +art (sign. Oij): 'The prynters haue founde a crafte to make bokes by +brasen letters sette in ordre by a frame,' which is thus latinized: +'Chalcographi artem excogitauerunt imprimendi libros qua literae formis +aereis excudunt.' Of later English-Latin dictionaries two deserve +passing mention: the _Abecedarium_ of Richard Huloet or Howlet, a +native of Wisbech, which appeared in the reign of Edward VI, in 1552, +and the Alvearie of John Baret, Fellow of Trinity College, Cambridge, +published under Elizabeth in 1573. The Abecedarium, although it gives +the Latin equivalents, may be looked upon to some extent as an English +dictionary, for many of the words have an English explanation, as well +as a Latin rendering; thus _Almesse_, or gift of dryncke, meate, or +money, distributed to the poore, _sporta_, _sportula_; _Amyable_, +pleasante, or hauing a good grace, _amabilis_; _Anabaptistes_, a sorte +of heretyques of late tyme in Germanye about the yere of our Lorde God +1524.... _Anabaptistae_. + +Baret's _Alvearie_ of 1573 has been justly styled 'one of the most +quaint and charming of all the early Dictionaries.' In his 'Prefatory +Address to the Reader' the author tells, in fine Elizabethan prose, +both how his book came into existence, and why he gave it its curious +name:-- + + 'About eighteene yeeres agone, hauing pupils at Cambridge + studious of the Latine tongue, I vsed them often to write + Epistles and Theames together, and dailie to translate + some peece of English into Latine, for the more speedie + attaining of the same. And after we had a little begun, + perceiuing what great trouble it was to come running to + me for euerie worde they missed, knowing then of no other + Dictionarie to helpe vs, but Sir Thomas Eliots Librarie, + which was come out a little before; I appointed them + certaine leaues of the same booke euerie daie to write + the english before the Latin, & likewise to gather a + number of fine phrases out of Cicero, Terence, Caesar, + Liuie, &c. & to set them vnder seuerall titles, for the + more readie finding them againe at their neede. Thus, + within a yeere or two, they had gathered together a great + volume, which (for the apt similitude betweene the good + Scholers and diligent Bees in gathering their waxe and + honie into their Hiue) I called then their _Aluearie_, + both for a memoriall by whom it was made, and also by + this name to incourage other to the like diligence, for + that they should not see their worthie praise for the + same, vnworthilie drowned in obliuion. Not long after, + diuers of our friends borrowing this our worke which we + had thus contriued & wrought onelie for our owne priuate + vse, often and many waies moued me to put it in print for + the common profet of others, and the publike propagation + of the Latine tongue.' + +But when Baret at length resolved to comply with this suggestion, +there were many difficulties to be overcome, the expense of the work +being not the least:-- + + 'And surelie, had not the right honourable Sir Thomas + Smith knight, principall Secretarie to the Queenes + Maiestie, that noble Theseus of learning, and comfortable + Patrone to all Students, and the right Worshipfull M. + Nowell, Deane of Pawles, manie waies encouraged me in + this wearie worke (the charges were so great, and the + losse of my time so much grieued me) I had neuer bene + able alone to haue wrestled against so manie troubles, + but long ere this had cleane broken off our worke begun, + and cast it by for euer.' + +Between the dates of the _Abecedarium_ and the _Alvearie_, Peter +Levins, Fellow of Magdalen College, Oxford, published, in 1570, the +first essay at an English Riming Dictionary, the _Manipulus +Vocabulorum_, or Handful of Vocables, an original copy of which is in +the Bodleian Library; it was reprinted for the Early English Text +Society in 1867 by Mr. H.B. Wheatley. The English words are arranged +in order of their terminations, and each is furnished with a Latin +equivalent. + +Of all the works which we have yet considered, Latin was an essential +element: whether the object was, as in the glossaries and vocabularies +before the fifteenth century, to explain the Latin words themselves, +or as in the _Promptorium_ and _Catholicon_, the _Abecedarium_ and the +_Alvearie_, and other works of the sixteenth century, to render +English words into Latin. But a new stage of development was marked by +the appearance of dictionaries of English with another modern +language. In 1521, the 'Introductory to write and to pronounce +Frenche,' by Alexander Barclay, author of the 'Ship of Fooles,' was +issued from the press of Robert Coplande; and about 1527 Giles du Guez +or du Wes (anglicized Dewes), French teacher to the Lady Mary, +afterwards Queen Mary, published his 'Introductorie for to lerne to +rede, to pronounce and to speke French trewly.' In addition to +grammatical rules and dialogues, it contains a select vocabulary +English and French. In 1514, Mary Tudor, younger sister of Henry VIII, +became the unwilling bride of Louis XII of France. To initiate the +princess in her husband's tongue, John Palsgrave, a native of London +and graduate of Cambridge, who had subsequently studied in Paris, was +chosen as her tutor, and accompanied her to France. For her use +Palsgrave prepared his celebrated _Esclarcissement de la Langue +Francoyse_, which he subsequently revised and published in 1530, after +his return to England, where he was incorporated M.A. at Oxford. The +_Esclarcissement_ is a famous book, at once grammar and vocabulary, +and may be considered as the earliest dictionary of a modern language, +in French as well as in English. It was reprinted in 1852 at the +expense of the French Government in the series of publications +entitled 'Collection de documents inedits sur l'histoire de France, +publies par les soins du Ministre de l'Instruction Publique, Deuxieme +Serie--Histoire des Lettres et des Sciences.' It is a trite saying +that 'they do these things better in France'; but it is, nevertheless, +sometimes true. Amid all the changes of government which France has +seen in modern times, it has never been forgotten that the history of +the French language, and of French letters and French science, is part +of the history of France; the British government has not even now +attained to the standpoint of recognizing this: among the historical +documents published under the direction of the authorities of the +Record Office, there is no series illustrating the history of the +language, the literature, or the science of England. + +Next to French, the continental languages most important to Englishmen +in the sixteenth century, were Italian and Spanish, of both of which, +accordingly, dictionaries were published before the end of the +century[7]. In 1599 Richard Percevall, Gent., published his dictionary +in Spanish and English; and in the same year 'resolute John Florio' +(who in his youth resided in Worcester Place, Oxford, and was +matriculated at Magdalen College in 1581) brought out his +Italian-English Dictionary, the _World of Words_, which he +re-published in a much enlarged form in 1611, with dedication to the +Queen of James I, as _Queen Anna's New World of Words_. This year, +also, Randall Cotgrave published his famous French-English Dictionary, +which afterwards passed through so many editions. In the absence as +yet of any merely English dictionary, the racy English vocabulary of +Florio and Cotgrave is of exceeding value, and has been successfully +employed in illustrating the contemporary language of Shakspere, to +whom Florio, patronized as he was by the Earls of Southampton and +Pembroke, was probably personally known. Thus, the same year which saw +England provided with the version of the Bible which was to be so +intimately identified with the language of the next three centuries, +saw her also furnished with adequate dictionaries of French, Italian, +and Spanish; and, in 1617, a still more ambitious work was +accomplished by John Minsheu in the production of a polyglot +dictionary of English with ten other languages, British or Welsh, Low +Dutch, High Dutch, French, Italian, Spanish, Portuguese, Latin, Greek, +and Hebrew, which he entitled '[Greek: Haegemon eis tas glossas], id +est _Ductor in Linguas_, the Guide into Tongues.' + +But though in these works there is necessarily contained much of the +material of an English dictionary, so that we can from them recover +most of the current vocabulary, no one appears before the end of the +sixteenth century to have felt that Englishmen could want a dictionary +to help them to the knowledge and correct use of their own language. +That language was either an in-born faculty, or it was inhaled with +their native air, or imbibed with their mothers' milk; how could they +need a book to teach them to speak their mother-tongue? To the +scholars of the Renascence the notion would have seemed absurd--as +absurd as it has seemed to some of their descendants in the nineteenth +century, that an English grammar-school or an English university +should trouble itself about such aboriginal products of the English +skull, as English language and literature. But by the end of the +sixteenth century, as by the end of the nineteenth, there was a moving +of the waters: the Renascence of ancient learning had itself brought +into English use thousands of learned words, from Latin, Greek, +Hebrew, Arabic, and other languages, 'ink-horn terms,' as they were +called by Bale and by Puttenham, unknown to, and not to be imbibed +from, mother or grandmother. A work exhibiting the spelling, and +explaining the meaning, of these new-fangle 'hard words' was the felt +want of the day; and the first attempt to supply it marks, on the +whole, the most important point in the evolution of the modern English +Dictionary. + +In 1604, Robert Cawdrey, who had been a schoolmaster at Okeham, and +afterwards at Coventry, published a modest octavo of 120 pages, 5-1/2 +inches by 3-1/2, calling itself _The Table Alphabeticall of Hard +Words_, in which he set forth the proper spelling and meaning of some +3,000 of these learned terms; his work reached a third edition in +1612[8]. In 1616, Dr. John Bullokar, then resident in Chichester, +followed with a work of the same kind and size, named by him _An +English Expositor_, of which numerous editions came out, one as late +as 1684. And in 1623 appeared the work which first assumed the title +of 'The English Dictionarie,' by H.C., Gent. H.C., we learn from the +dedication, was Henry Cockeram, to whom John Ford the dramatist +addressed the following congratulatory lines:-- + + To my industrious friend, the Author of this English Dictionarie, + MR. HENRY COCKRAM OF EXETER. + + Borne in the West? liue there? so far from Court? + From Oxford, Cambridge, London? yet report + (Now in these daies of Eloquence) such change + Of words? vnknown? vntaught? tis new and strange. + Let Gallants therefore skip no more from hence + To Italic, France, Spaine, and with expence + Waste time and faire estates, to learne new fashions + Of complementall phrases, soft temptations + To glorious beggary: Here let them hand + This Booke; here studie, reade, and vnderstand: + Then shall they find varietie at Home, + As curious as at Paris, or at Rome. + For my part I confesse, hadst not thou writ, + I had not beene acquainted with more wit + Than our old English taught; but now I can + Be proud to know I have a Countryman + Hath strugled for a fame, and what is more, + Gain'd it by paths of Art, vntrod before. + The benefit is generall; the crowne + Of praise particular, and thats _thine owne_. + What should I say? thine owne deserts inspire thee, + Twere base to enuie, I must then admire thee. + + A friend and louer of thy paines, + IOHN FORD. + +And a deeply interesting little book is this diminutive ancestor of +the modern English Dictionary, to describe which adequately would take +far more time than the limits of this lecture afford. It is divided +into three parts: Part I contains the hard words with their +explanation in ordinary language; and instructive it is to see what +words were then considered hard and unknown. Many of them certainly +would be so still: as, for example, _abgregate_, 'to lead out of the +flock'; _acersecomick_, 'one whose hair was never cut'; +_adcorporated_, 'married'; _adecastick_, 'one that will do just +howsoever'; _bubulcitate_, 'to cry like a cow-boy'; _collocuplicate_, +'to enrich'--concerning which we wonder who used them, or where +Cockeram found them; but we are surprised to find among these hard +words _abandon_, _abhorre_, _abrupt_, _absurd_, _action_, _activitie_, +and _actresse_, explained as 'a woman doer,' for the stage actress had +not yet appeared. _Blunder_, 'to bestir oneself,' and _Garble_, 'to +clense things from dust,' remind us that the meanings of words are +subject to change. The Second Part contains the ordinary words +'explained' by their hard equivalents, and is intended to teach a +learned style. The plain man or gentlewoman may write a letter in his +or her natural language, and then by turning up the simple words in +the dictionary alter them into their learned equivalents. Thus +'abound' may be altered into _exuperate_, 'too great plenty' into +_uberty_, 'he and I are of one age' into _we are coetaneous_, +'youthful babbling' into _juvenile inaniloquence_--a useful expression +to hurl at an opponent in the Oxford Union. + +The last part is the most entertaining of all: it is headed 'The Third +Part, treating of Gods and Goddesses, Men and Women, Boyes and Maides, +Giants and Diuels, Birds and Beasts, Monsters and Serpents, Wells and +Riuers, Herbes, Stones, Trees, Dogges, Fishes, and the like'; it is a +key to the allusions to classical, historical, mythological, and other +marvellous persons, animals, and things, to be met with in polite +literature. A good example of its contents is the well-known article +on the _Crocodile_:-- + + '_Crocodile_, a beast hatched of an egge, yet some of them + grow to a great bignesse, as 10. 20. or 30. foot in length: + it hath cruell teeth and scaly back, with very sharpe clawes + on his feete: if it see a man afraid of him, it will eagerly + pursue him, but on the contrary, if he be assaulted he wil + shun him. Hauing eaten the body of a man, it will weepe ouer + the head, but in fine eate the head also: thence came the + Prouerb, he shed Crocodile teares, viz., fayned teares.' + +Appreciation of Cockeram's 'Dictionarie' was marked by the numerous +editions through which it passed down as late as 1659. Meanwhile +Thomas Blount, Barrister of the Inner Temple, and correspondent of +Anthony a Wood, was devoting the leisure hours of twenty years to his +'_Glossographia_: or a Dictionary interpreting all such hard words, +whether Hebrew, Greek, Latin,' etc., 'as are now used in our refined +English Tongue,' of which the first edition saw the light in 1656. + +I suppose it is a truism, that the higher position now taken by +English studies, is intimately interwoven with the advances which have +been made during the last quarter of a century in the higher education +of women, and that but for the movement to let women share in the +advantages of a university education, it is doubtful whether the +nineteenth century would have witnessed the establishment of a School +of English Language and Literature at Oxford. In connexion with this +it is a noteworthy fact, that the preparation of these early +seventeenth century English dictionaries was also largely due to a +consideration of the educational wants of women. The 'Table +Alphabeticall' of Robert Cawdrey, which was dedicated to five 'right +honourable, Worshipfull, vertuous, and godlie Ladies[9],' the sisters +of his former pupil, Sir James Harrington, Knight, bears on its +title-page that it is 'gathered for the benefit and help of Ladies, +Gentlewomen, or any other vnskilfull persons.' Bullokar's _Expositor_ +was dedicated 'to the Right Honorable and Vertvovs his Singvlar Good +Ladie, the Ladie Jane Viscountesse Mountague,' under whose patronage +he hoped to see the work 'perhaps gracefully admitted among greatest +Ladies and studious Gentlewomen, to whose reading (I am made belieue) +it will not prooue altogether vngratefull.' In similar words, the +title-page of Cockeram's Dictionary proclaims its purpose of 'Enabling +as well Ladies and Gentlewomen ... as also Strangers of any Nation to +the vnderstanding of the more difficult Authors already printed in our +Language, and the more speedy attaining of an elegant perfection of +the English tongue, both in reading, speaking, and writing.' And +Thomas Blount, setting forth the purpose of his _Glossographia_, says, +in words of which one seems to have heard an echo in reference to an +English School in this University, 'It is chiefly intended for the +more-knowing Women, and less-knowing Men; or indeed for all such of +the unlearned, who can but finde in an Alphabet the word they +understand not.' + +It is noticeable that all these references to the needs of women +disappear from the later editions, and are wanting in later +dictionaries after 1660; whether this was owing to the fact that the +less-knowing women had now come upsides with the more-knowing men; or +that with the Restoration, female education went out of fashion, and +women sank back again into elegant illiteracy, I leave to the +historian to discover; I only, as a lexicographer, record the fact +that from the Restoration the dictionaries are silent about the +education of women, till we pass the Revolution settlement and reach +the Age of Queen Anne, when J.K. in 1702 tells us that his dictionary +is 'chiefly designed for the benefit of young Scholars, Tradesmen, +Artificers, and the female sex, who would learn to spell truely.' + +Blount's _Glossographia_ went through many editions down to 1707; but +two years after its appearance, Edward Phillips, the son of Milton's +sister Anne, published his _New World of Words_, which Blount with +some reason considered to be largely plagiarized from his book. He +held his peace, however, until Phillips brought out a Law-Dictionary +or _Nomothetes_, also largely copied from his own _Nomo-lexicon_, when +he could refrain himself no longer, and burst upon the world with his +indignant pamphlet, 'A World of Errors discovered in the New World of +Words, and in Nomothetes or the Interpreter,' in which he exhibits the +proofs of Phillips's cribbing, and makes wild sport of the cases in +which his own errors and misprints had either been copied or muddled +by his plagiarist. The latter did not vouchsafe a reply; he knew a +better plan; he quietly corrected in his next edition the mistakes +which Blount had so conveniently pointed out, and his 'New World of +Words,' furnished with an engraved frontispiece, containing views of +Oxford and Cambridge, and portraits of some Oxford and Cambridge +scholars, lived on in successive editions as long as Blount's. + +Time and space forbid me even to recount the later dictionaries of +this class and period; we need only mention that of Elisha Coles, a +chorister and subsequently matriculated student of Magdalen College +(of which his uncle, Elisha Coles, was steward under the +Commonwealth), a meritorious work which passed through numerous +editions down to 1732; and that of Edward Cocker, the celebrated +arithmetician and writing-master of St. George's, Southwark, by whom +people still sometimes asseverate 'according to Cocker.' This was +published after his death, 'from the author's correct copy,' by John +Hawkins, in 1704, with a portrait of the redoubtable Cocker himself in +flowing wig and gown, and the following lines:-- + + 'COCKER, who in fair writing did excell, + And in Arithmetic perform'd as well, + This necessary work took next in hand, + That Englishmen might English understand.' + +The last edition of Phillips' _New World of Words_ was edited after +his death, with numerous additions, by John Kersey, son of John Kersey +the mathematician. Two years later Kersey threw the materials into +another form and published it in an octavo, as Kersey's '_Dictionarium +Anglo-Britannicum_, or a General English Dictionary,' of which three +editions appeared before 1721. In this work there are included a +considerable number of obsolete words, chiefly from Spenser and his +contemporaries, marked O., and in some cases erroneously explained. +Professor Skeat has pointed out that this was the source of +Chatterton's Elizabethan vocabulary, and that he took the obsolete +words, which he attributed to Rowley, erroneous explanations and all, +direct from Kersey's Dictionary. + +More than 100 years had now elapsed since Robert Cawdrey prepared his +'Table Alphabeticall,' and nearly a century since the work of +Cockeram; and all the dictionaries which had meanwhile appeared, +although their size had steadily increased, were, in purpose and fact, +only what these works had been--Vocabularies of 'Hard Words,' not of +words in general. The notion that an English Dictionary ought to +contain _all_ English words had apparently as yet occurred to no one; +at least no one had proposed to carry the idea into practice. But this +further step in the evolution of the modern dictionary was now about +to be made, and the man who made it was one of the most deserving in +the annals of English lexicography. We now, looking back on the +eighteenth century, associate it chiefly with the work of Dr. Johnson; +but down beyond the middle of that century, and to the man in the +street much later, by far the best-known name in connexion with +dictionaries was that of NATHANAEL BAILEY. An advertisement appended +to the first edition of his Dictionary runs thus: 'Youth Boarded, and +taught the Hebrew, Greek, and Latin languages, in a Method more Easy +and Expedient than is common; also, other School-learning, by the +_Author_ of this _Dictionary_, to be heard of at Mr. Batley's, +Bookseller, at the Sign of the Dove in Paternoster Row.' Bailey was +the author or editor of several scholarly works; but, for us, his +great work was his _Universal Etymological English Dictionary_, +published in 1721. In this he aimed at including all English words; +yet not for the mere boast of 'completeness,' but for a practical +purpose. The dictionary was not merely explanatory, it was also +etymological; and though Englishmen might not need to be told the +meaning of _man_ or _woman_, _dog_ or _cat_[10], they might want a +hint as to their derivation. Bailey had hit the nail aright: +successive editions were called for almost every two years during the +century; when the author died, in 1742, the tenth edition was in the +press. In that of 1731, Bailey first marked the stress-accent, a step +in the direction of indicating pronunciation. In 1730, moreover, he +brought out with the aid of some specialists, his folio dictionary, +the greatest lexicographical work yet undertaken in English, into +which he also introduced diagrams and proverbs. This is an interesting +book historically, for, according to Sir John Hawkins, it formed the +working basis of Dr. Johnson[11]. + +Bailey had many imitators and rivals, nearly all of whom aimed, like +him, at including all words; of these I need only name Dyche and +Pardon 1735, B.N. Defoe 1735, and Benjamin Martin 1749. + +During the second quarter of the century, the feeling arose among +literary men, as well as among the booksellers, that the time had come +for the preparation of a 'Standard Dictionary' of the English tongue. +The language had now attained a high degree of literary perfection; a +perfect prose style, always a characteristic of maturity, had been +created; a brilliant galaxy of dramatists and essayists--Dryden, Pope, +Addison, Steele, Swift, Defoe--had demonstrated that English was +capable of expressing clearly and elegantly everything that needed to +be expressed in language. The age of Queen Anne was compared to the +Ciceronian age of Latin, or the age of Aristotle and Plato in Greek. +But in both these cases, as indeed in that of every known ancient +people, the language, after reaching its acme of perfection, had begun +to decay and become debased: the golden age of Latinity had passed +into a silvern, and that into a brazen and an iron age. The fear was +that a like fate should overtake English also; to avert which calamity +the only remedy appeared to be to _fix the language_ by means of a +'Standard Dictionary,' which should register the proper sense and use +of every word and phrase, from which no polite writer henceforth would +be expected to deviate; but, even as generation after generation of +boys and men found their perfection of Latinity in the imitation of +Cicero, so all succeeding ages of Englishmen should find their ideal +of speech and writing fixed for ever in this standard dictionary. To +us of a later age, with our fuller knowledge of the history of +language, and our wider experience of its fortunes, when it has to be +applied to entirely new fields of knowledge, such as have been opened +to us since the birth of modern science, this notion seems childlike +and pathetic. But it was eminently characteristic of the eighteenth +century, an age of staid and decorous subsidence from the energetic +restlessness of the seventeenth--an age in which men eschewed +revolution and innovation, and devoted themselves assiduously to +conserve, consolidate, polish, refine, and make the best of what they +had. + +In this notion of ascertaining, purifying, refining, and fixing the +language, England was only following in the wake of some other +countries. In Italy the _Accademia della Crusca_, and in France the +_Academie francaise_, had been instituted for this very purpose, and +the latter had, after twenty years of preparation, and forty more +years of work, published the first edition of a dictionary in which +the French language was (fondly and vainly) supposed to be thus +ascertained, sifted, and fixed for ever. England had no Academy; but +it was thought that what had been done in France by the Forty +Immortals might perhaps be done here by some leading man of letters. +The idea had, it appears, been put before Alexander Pope, and approved +by him; he is said even to have drawn up a list of the authors whose +writings might be taken as authorities for such a dictionary; but he +died in 1744, before anything further was done. The subject seems then +to have been pressed upon the attention of SAMUEL JOHNSON; but it was +not till 1747 that the matter took definite shape, when a syndicate of +five or six London booksellers contracted with Johnson to produce the +desired standard dictionary in the space of three years for the sum of +fifteen hundred guineas. Alas for human calculations, and especially +for those of dictionary makers! The work occupied nearly thrice the +specified time, and, ere it was finished, the stipulated sum had been +considerably overdrawn. At length, in 1755, appeared the two massive +folios, each 17 inches long, 10 inches wide, and 3-1/2 inches thick, +entitled 'A | Dictionary | of the | English Language | in which | the +Words are deduced from their Originals, | and | illustrated in their +different significations | by Examples from the Best Writers. | By +Samuel Johnson.' The limits of this lecture do not permit me to say +one tithe of what might and ought to be said of this great work. For +the present purpose it must suffice to point out that the special new +feature which it contributed to the evolution of the modern dictionary +was the illustration of the use of each word by a selection of +literary quotations, and the more delicate appreciation and +discrimination of senses which this involved and rendered possible. +Only where he had no quotations did Johnson insert words from Bailey's +folio, or other source, with _Dict._ as the authority. The literary +quotations were entirely supplied by himself from his capacious +memory, or from books specially perused and marked by him for +extraction. When he first began his work in the room in Gough Square, +his whole time was devoted to thus reading and marking books, from +which six clerkly assistants copied the marked quotations. The fact +that many of the quotations were inserted from memory without +verification (a practice facilitated by Johnson's plan of merely +naming the author, without specifying the particular work quoted, or +giving any reference whereby the passage could be turned up) is +undoubtedly the reason why many of the quotations are not verbally +exact. Even so, however, they are generally adequate for the purpose +for which they are adduced, that is, they usually contain the word for +which they are quoted, and the context is more or less accurately +rendered. But in some cases it is otherwise: Johnson's memory played +him false, and he quotes a passage for a word that it does not +actually contain. As an example, under _Distilment_ he correctly +quotes from _Hamlet_, 'And in the porches of mine ears did pour the +leperous distilment.' But when he reached _Instilment_, his memory +became vague, and forgetting that he had already quoted the passage +under _Distilment_, he quoted it again as 'the leperous instilment'--a +reading which does not exist in any text of Shakspere, and was a mere +temporary hallucination of memory. There are some other curious +mistakes, which must, I suppose, have crept in either in the course of +transcription or of printing. As specimens I mention two, because they +have unfortunately perverted ordinary usage. The two words _Coco_ and +_Cocoa_--the former a Portuguese word[12], naming the _coco-nut_, the +fruit of a palm-tree; the latter a latinized form of _Cacao_, the +Aztec name of a Central American shrub, whence we have cocoa and +chocolate--were always distinguished down to Johnson's time, and were +in fact distinguished by Johnson himself in his own writings. His +account of these in the Dictionary is quoted from Miller's _Gardener's +Dictionary_ and Hill's _Materia Medica_, in which the former is spelt +_coco_ and the latter _cacao_ and _cocoa_. But in Johnson's Dictionary +the two words are by some accident run together under the heading +_cocoa_, with the disastrous result that modern vulgar usage mixes the +two up, spells the _coco-nut_, 'cocoa-' as if it were _co-co-a_, and +on the other hand pronounces _cocoa_, the cacao-bean and the beverage, +as if it were _coco_. The word _dispatch_, from It. _dispaccio_, had +been in English use for some 250 years when Johnson's Dictionary +appeared, and had been correctly spelt by everybody (that is by +everybody but the illiterate) with dis-. This was Johnson's own +spelling both before and after he published the dictionary, as may be +seen in his _Letters_ edited by Dr. G. Birkbeck Hill[13]. It was also +the spelling of all the writers whom Johnson quoted. But by some +inexplicable error, the word got into the dictionary as _despatch_, +and this spelling was even substituted in most of the quotations. I +have not found that a single writer followed this erroneous spelling +in the eighteenth century: Nelson, Wellesley, Wellington, and all our +commanders and diplomatists wrote _Dispatches_; but since about 1820, +the filtering down of the influence of Johnson's Dictionary has caused +this erroneous spelling _despatch_ to become generally known and to be +looked upon as authoritative; so that at the present time about half +our newspapers give the erroneous form, to which, more larmentably, +the Post Office, after long retaining the correct official tradition, +recently capitulated. + +But despite small blemishes[14], the dictionary was a marvellous piece +of work to accomplish in eight and a half years; and it is quite +certain that, if all the quotations had had to be verified and +furnished with exact references, a much longer time, or the employment +of much more collaboration, would have been required. With much +antecedent preparation, with much skilled co-operation, and with +strenuous effort, it took more than nine years to produce the first +three letters of the alphabet of the Oxford New English Dictionary. + +Johnson's great work raised English lexicography altogether to a +higher level. In his hands it became a department of literature. The +value of the Dictionary was recognized from the first by men of +letters; a second edition was called for the same year. But it hardly +became a popular work, or even a work of popular fame, before the +present century. For forty years after its first publication editions +of Bailey followed each other as rapidly as ever; numerous new +dictionaries of the size and character of Bailey, often largely +indebted to Johnson's definitions, appeared. But the only new feature +introduced into lexicography between 1755 and the end of the century +was the indication of the Orthoepy or Pronunciation. From Bailey +onward, and by Johnson himself, the place of the stress-accent had +been marked, but no attempt had been made to show how such a group of +letters, for example, as _colonel_, or _enough_, or _phthisical_, was +actually pronounced; or, to use modern phraseology, to tell what the +_living word_ itself was, as distinguished from its written symbol. +This feature, so obviously important in a language of which the +spelling had ceased to be phonetic, was added by Dr. William Kenrick +in his 'New Dictionary' of 1773, a little later in 1775 by William +Perry, in 1780 by Thomas Sheridan, and especially in 1791 by John +Walker, whose authority long remained as supreme in the domain of +pronunciation, as that of Dr. Johnson in definition and illustration; +so that popular dictionaries of the first half of the present century +commonly claimed to be abridgements of 'Johnson's Dictionary, with, +the Pronunciation on the basis of Walker.' + +From the first quarter of the nineteenth century, the lexicographical +supremacy of Johnson's Dictionary was undisputed, and eminent students +of the language busied themselves in trying, not to supersede it, but +to supplement and perfect it. Numerous supplements, containing +additional words, senses, and quotations, were published; in 1818 a +new edition, embracing many such accessions, was prepared by the +learned Archdeacon Todd, and 'Todd's Johnson' continues to be an +esteemed work to our own day. But only two independent contributions +to the development of lexicography were made in the earlier half of +the nineteenth century. These were the American work of Noah Webster, +and the English work of Dr. Charles Richardson. + +Webster was a great man, a born definer of words; he was fired with +the idea that America ought to have a dictionary of its own form of +English, independent of British usage, and he produced a work of great +originality and value. Unfortunately, like many other clever men, he +had the notion that derivations can be elaborated from one's own +consciousness as well as definitions, and he included in his work +so-called 'etymologies' of this sort. But Etymology is simply +Word-history, and Word-history, like all other history, is a record of +the _facts_ which _did_ happen, not a fabric of conjectures as to what +may have happened. In the later editions of Webster, these +'derivations' have been cleared out _en masse_, and the etymology +placed in the hands of men abreast of the science of the time; and the +last edition of Webster, the _International_, is perhaps the best of +one-volume dictionaries. + +Richardson started on a new track altogether. Observing how much light +was shed on the meaning of words by Johnson's quotations, he was +impressed with the notion that, in a dictionary, definitions are +unnecessary, that quotations alone are sufficient; and he proceeded to +carry this into effect by making a dictionary without definitions or +explanations of meaning, or at least with the merest rudiments of +them, but illustrating each group of words by a large series of +quotations. In the collection of these he displayed immense research. +Going far beyond the limits of Dr. Johnson, he quoted from authors +back to the year 1300, and probably for the first time made Chaucer +and Gower and Piers Ploughman living names to many readers. And his +special notion was quite correct _in theory_. Quotations _will_ tell +the full meaning of a word, _if one has enough of them_; but it takes +a great many to be enough, and it takes a reader a long time to read +and weigh all the quotations, and to deduce from them the meanings +which might be put before him in a line or two. As a fact, while +Richardson's notion was correct in theory, mundane conditions of space +and time rendered it humanly impracticable. Nevertheless, the mass of +quotations, most of them with exact references, collected by him, and +printed under the word-groups which they illustrated, was a service +never to be undervalued or forgotten, and his work, 'A New Dictionary +of the English Language ... Illustrated by Quotations from the best +Authors' by Charles Richardson, LL.D., 1836-7, still continues to be a +valuable repertory of illustrations. + +Such was the position of English lexicography in the middle of the +nineteenth century, when the late Dr. Trench, then Dean of +Westminster, who had already written several esteemed works on the +English language and the history of words, read two papers before the +Philological Society in London 'On some Deficiencies in existing +English Dictionaries,' in which, while speaking with much appreciation +of the labours of Dr. Johnson and his successors, he declared that +these labours yet fell far short of giving us the ideal English +Dictionary. Especially, he pointed out that for the _history_ of words +and families of words, and for the changes of form and sense which +words had historically passed through, they gave hardly any help +whatever. No one could find out from all the dictionaries extant how +long any particular word had been in the language, which of the many +senses in which many words were used was the original, or how or when +these many senses had been developed; nor, in the case of words +described as _obsolete_, were we told _when_ they became obsolete or +by whom they were last used. He pointed out also that the obsolete and +the rarer words of the language had never been completely collected; +that thousands of words current in the literature of the past three +centuries had escaped the diligence of Johnson and all his +supplementers; that, indeed, the collection of the requisite material +for a complete dictionary could not be compassed by any one man, +however long-lived and however diligent, but must be the work of many +collaborators who would undertake systematically to read and to +extract English literature. He called upon the Philological Society, +therefore, as the only body in England then interesting itself in the +language, to undertake the collection of materials to complete the +work already done by Bailey, Johnson, Todd, Webster, Richardson, and +others, and to prepare a supplement to all the dictionaries, which +should register all omitted words and senses, and supply all the +historical information in which these works were lacking, and, above +all, should give quotations illustrating the first and last +appearance, and every notable point in the life-history of every word. + +From this impulse arose the movement which, widened and directed by +much practical experience, has culminated in the preparation of the +Oxford English Dictionary, 'A new English Dictionary on Historical +Principles, founded mainly on the materials collected by the +Philological Society.' This dictionary superadds to all the features +that have been successively evolved by the long chain of workers, the +historical information which Dr. Trench desiderated. It seeks not +merely to record every word that has been used in the language for the +last 800 years, with its written form and signification, and the +pronunciation of the current words, but to furnish a biography of each +word, giving as nearly as possible the date of its birth or first +known appearance, and, in the case of an obsolete word or sense, of +its last appearance, the source from which it was actually derived, +the form and sense with which it entered the language or is first +found in it, and the successive changes of form and developments of +sense which it has since undergone. All these particulars are derived +from historical research; they are an induction of facts gathered by +the widest investigation of the written monuments of the language. For +the purposes of this historical illustration more than five millions +of extracts have been made, by two thousand volunteer Readers, from +innumerable books, representing the English literature of all ages, +and from numerous documentary records. From these, and the further +researches for which they provide a starting-point, the history of +each word is deduced and exhibited. + +Since the Philological Society's scheme was propounded, several large +dictionaries have been compiled, adopting one or more of Archbishop +Trench's suggestions, and thus showing some of the minor features of +this dictionary. They have collected some of the rare and obsolete +words and senses of the past three centuries; they have attained to +greater fullness and exactness in exhibiting the current uses of +words, and especially of the many modern words which the progress of +physical science has called into being. But they leave the _history_ +of the words themselves where it was when Dr. Trench pointed out the +deficiencies of existing dictionaries. And their literary +illustrations of the older words are, in too many cases, those of Dr. +Johnson, copied from dictionary to dictionary without examination or +verification, and, what is more important, without acknowledgement, so +that the reader has no warning that a given quotation is merely +second-or third-hand, and, therefore, to be accepted with +qualification[15]. The quotations in the New English Dictionary, on +the other hand, have been supplied afresh by its army of volunteer +Readers; or, when for any reason one is adopted from a preceding +dictionary without verification, the fact is stated, both as an +acknowledgement of others' work, and as a warning to the reader that +it is given on intermediate authority. + +Original work, patient induction of facts, minute verification of +evidence, are slow processes, and a work so characterized cannot be +put together with scissors and paste, or run off with the speed of the +copyist. All the great dictionaries of the modern languages have taken +a long time to make; but the speed with which the New English +Dictionary has now advanced nearly to its half-way point can +advantageously claim comparison with the progress of any other great +dictionary, even when this falls far behind in historical and +inductive character.[16] Be the speed what it may, however, there is +the consideration that the work thus done is done once for all; the +structure now reared will have to be added to, continued, and extended +with time, but it will remain, it is believed, the great body of fact +on which all future work will be built. It is never possible to +forecast the needs and notions of those who shall come after us; but +with our present knowledge it is not easy to conceive what new feature +can now be added to English Lexicography. At any rate, it can be +maintained that in the Oxford Dictionary, permeated as it is through +and through with the scientific method of the century, Lexicography +has for the present reached its supreme development. + +In the course of this lecture, it has been needful to give so many +details as to individual works, that my audience may at times have +failed 'to see the wood for the trees,' and may have lost the clue of +the lexicographical evolution. Let me then in conclusion recapitulate +the stages which have been already indicated. These are: the glossing +of difficult words in Latin manuscripts by easier Latin, and at length +by English words; the collection of the English glosses into +Glossaries, and the elaboration of Latin-English Vocabularies; the +later formation of English-Latin Vocabularies; the production of +Dictionaries of English and another modern language; the compilation +of Glossaries and Dictionaries of 'hard' English words; the extension +of these by Bailey, for etymological purposes, to include words in +general; the idea of a Standard Dictionary, and its realization by Dr. +Johnson with illustrative quotations; the notion that a Dictionary +should also show the pronunciation of the living word; the extension +of the function of quotations by Richardson; the idea that the +Dictionary should be a biography of every word, and should set forth +every fact connected with its origin, history, and use, on a strictly +historical method. These stages coincide necessarily with stages of +our national and literary history; the first two were already reached +before the Norman Conquest; the third followed upon the recognition of +English as the official language of the nation, and its employment by +illustrious Middle English writers. The Dictionaries of the modern +languages were necessitated first by the fact that French had at +length ceased to be the living tongue of any class of Englishmen, and +secondly by the other fact that the rise of the modern languages and +increasing intercourse with the Continent made Latin no longer +sufficient as a common medium of international communication. The +consequences of the Renascence and of the New Learning of the +sixteenth century appear in the need for the Dictionaries of Hard +Words at the beginning of the seventeenth; the literary polish of the +age of Anne begat the yearning for a standard dictionary, and inspired +the work of Johnson; the scientific and historical spirit of the +nineteenth century has at once called for and rendered possible the +Oxford English Dictionary. Thus the evolution of English Lexicography +has followed with no faltering steps the evolution of English History +and the development of English Literature. + + + +FOOTNOTES: + +[1] Thus the first six Latin words in A glossed are _apodixen_, +_amineae_, _amites_, _arcontus_, _axungia_; the last six are _arbusta_, +_anser_, _affricus_, _atticus_, _auiaria_, _avena_; mostly 'hard' +Latin it will be perceived. The Erfurt Glossary is, to a great extent, +a duplicate of the Epinal. + +[2] Thus the first five Latin entries in ab- are _abminiculum_, +_abelena_, _abiecit_, _absida_, _abies_, and the last five _aboleri_, +_ab borea_, _abiles_, _aborsus_, _absorduum_. To find whether a wanted +word in ab- occurs in this glossary, it was necessary to look through +more than two columns containing ninety-five entries. + +[3] An important collection of these early beginnings of lexicography +in England was made so long ago as 1857, by the late distinguished +antiquary Thomas Wright, and published as the first volume of a +Library of National Antiquities. A new edition of this with sundry +emendations and additions was prepared and published in 1884 by +Professor R.F. Wuelcker of Leipzig, and the collection is now generally +referred to by scholars in German fashion under the designation of +Wright-Wuelcker. + +[4] This is the primary reason why in Middle and Modern English, +unlike what is found in German and Dutch, the terms of culture, art, +science, and philosophy, are of French or, through French, of Latin +origin. The corresponding Old English terms were forgotten during the +age of illiteracy, and when, generations later, the speaker of English +came again to deal with such subjects, he had to do like Layamon, when +he knew no longer _tungol-croeft_, and could refer to it only as 'the +craft ihote _astronomie_ in other kunnes speche.' + +[5] Also _Medulla Grammaticae_, or usually _Grammatice_. + +[6] At the end is an alphabetical list of adjectives; extending from +lf. 79a, col. 2, to 83a, foot. + +[7] It must however be mentioned that the second dictionary of English +and another modern tongue was appropriately 'A Dictionary in Englyshe +and Welshe, moche necessary to all suche Welshemen as wil spedlye +learne the englyshe tongue, thought vnto the kynges maiestie very mete +to be sette forth to the vse of his graces subiectes in Wales, ... by +Wyllyam Salesbury.' The colophon is 'Imprynted at London in Foster +Lane, by me John Waley. 1547.' + +[8] In the Dedication he says, 'Which worke, long ago for the most +part, was gathered by me, but lately augmented by my sonne Thomas, who +now is Schoolemaister in London.' + +[9] 'To the right honourable, worshipfull, vertuous, & godlie Ladies, +the Lady Hastings, the Lady Dudley, the Lady Mountague, the Ladie +Wingfield, and the Lady Leigh, his Christian friends, R.C. wisheth +great prosperitie in this life, with increase of grace, and peace from +GOD our Father, through Iesus Christ our Lord and onely Sauiour.' (A +2.) + +[10] His explanations of such words were curt enough: '_Cat_, a +Creature well known'; '_Horse_, a Beast well known'; '_Man_, a +Creature endued with Reason.' + +[11] 'An interleaved copy of Bailey's dictionary in folio he made the +repository of the several articles.' _Works of J._, 1787, I. 175. + +[12] Pg. _coco_, a grinning mask, applied to the coco-nut because of +the three holes and central protuberance at its apex, suggesting two +eyes, a mouth, and nose. + +[13] The following are examples of his own practice: _The Rambler_ +(1751), No. 153, par. 3, 'I was in my eighteenth year dispatched to +the university.' Ibid., No. 161, par. 4, 'I ... soon dispatched a +bargain on the usual terms.' _Letter to Mrs. Thrale_, May 6, 1776, 'We +dispatched our journey very peaceably.' + +[14] Among such must be reckoned the treatment of words in the +explanation of which Johnson showed political or personal animus or +whimsical humour, as in the well-known cases of _whig_, _tory_, +_excise_, _pension_, _pensioner_, _oats_, _Grub-street_, +_lexicographer_ (see Boswell's _Johnson_, ed. Birkbeck Hill, i. 294); +although it must be admitted that these have come to be among the +famous spots of the Dictionary, and have given gentle amusement to +thousands, to whom it has been a delight to see 'human nature' too +strong for lexicographic decorum. + +[15] In some cases, long Lists of the Authors, from whose works 'the +illustrative quotations have been selected,' are given, without the +statement that many of those quotations have not actually been +selected from the authors and works named, but have merely been +annexed from Johnson or one of his supplementers. + +[16] The famous _Deutsches Woerterbuch_ of Jacob and Wilhelm Grimm, +after many years of preparation, began to be printed in 1852; Jacob +Grimm himself died in 1863, in the middle of the letter F; the work is +expected to reach the end of S by the close of the century. The great +_Woordenboek der Nederlandsche Taal_ was commenced in 1852; its first +volume, _A--Ajuin_, was published in 1882, and it is not yet quite +half-finished. Of the new edition of the _Vocabolario della Crusca_, +which is to a certain extent on historical principles, Vol. I, +containing A, was published in 1863, and Vol. VIII, completing I, in +1899; at least twenty-five more years will be required to reach Z. +None of these works embraces so long a period of the language, or is +so strictly historical in method, as the New English Dictionary. +Rather are they, like Littre's great _Dictionnaire de la Langue +Francaise_, Dictionaries of the modern language, with the current +words more or less historically treated. + + + + + + +End of the Project Gutenberg EBook of The evolution of English lexicography +by James Augustus Henry Murray + +*** END OF THIS PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK EVOLUTION OF ENGLISH LEXICOGRAPHY *** + +***** This file should be named 11694.txt or 11694.zip ***** +This and all associated files of various formats will be found in: + https://www.gutenberg.org/1/1/6/9/11694/ + +Produced by Brendan Lane and the Online Distributed Proofreading Team. + +Updated editions will replace the previous one--the old editions +will be renamed. + +Creating the works from public domain print editions means that no +one owns a United States copyright in these works, so the Foundation +(and you!) can copy and distribute it in the United States without +permission and without paying copyright royalties. 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