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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 *** |