14 OCTOBER 1865, Page 18

AN AMERICAN DICTIONARY OF I HE ENGLISH LANGUAGE.* jonxsobr, in

his preface to his dictionary, says, that "every other author may aspire to praise ; the lexicographer can only hope to escape reproach." In his own case the observation was entirely belied by the result, for it is by his dictionary, next to his conversation, and certainly but little by his other works, that he is known by the present generation ; but if not true of him, it is true of an English lexicographer now. He himself occupied the field once for all, bestowed the labour, and reaped the harvest of credit. He worked out the mine of past English literature, and left little for future lexicographers but to embrace the diction of their own times, to collect new-born words, and give stray foundlings a fair chance of proving their parentage, and asserting their claim to take equal rank with their brethren already established on the list.

But the field, if closed as regards past research, has ever widened in other ways. Each fresh country in which English became the only or the dominant language exacted from it words and expres- sions to meet its own peculiar requirements. Philologists tell us that it has frequently happened to nomad tribes in a low state of civilization, after being divided and separated, to have so changed their language as in a generation or two to have been incapable of understanding each other's speech. Our own language, exposed as it has been all over the world to the most varied circumstances of soil and climate, has shown remarkably little divergence —a great proof of its fulness and richness ; yet on the other aide of the Atlantic, even so far back as sixty years ago, when Dr. Webster began his dictionary, there could not fail to be a respectable list of words little known on this side, or if known, too indiscriminately condemned as slang. To claim a place for them, and to vindicate their dignity, was one of the principal objects which ha had in view in compiling what he called an American Dictionary of the English Language. The first edition was published in 1828. The labours of his literary successors have combined to produce a new edition comprised in a single volume, far surpassing in dimensions the ponderous Liddoil and Scott, and rivalling even the bulky volumes of Facciolati.

Noah Webster's training was not that of a mere student. His

early years were passed on his father's farm at Hartford. It was not till his fourteenth year that he began classics, and of his col- lege course at Yale a great part was spent in the militia on active service against the English troops. For several years he obtained a precarious subsistence by teaching in schools, and his first literary success was- the publication of a spelling-book, which became so popular as to enable him to live on the proceeds for the twenty years during which he was compiling his dictionary. He also edited a daily paper at New York, and as a political pamphleteer gave valuable support to Washington's Government. Nor was such a life an unfitting one to prepare him for what was after- wards the chief work of his life. Words had ceased to be the tools or the playthings of men of learning and letters, and were growing luxuriantly out of the needs of the workshop and the public meeting.

It might be expected under such circumstances that the book would be less remarkable for correctness and accuracy of scholar- ship, than for the extraordinary extent and versatility of the knowledge displayed in it. Its universality is truly wonderful, and is the most valuable feature in it. There is no fastidious rejection or selection of words ; every one, slang, cant, or vulgar- ism, finds its place, albeit sometimes characterized disapprovingly according to its deserts, the object being rightly considered to be, not to sit in judgment on words, but to bring them to light, let them find their own level, and stand for what they are worth. No authority, however learned, can extinguish a word in common use, any more than Convocation can abolish a heresy. Nor did Dr. Webster confine himself to his programme of an Americarr-English dictionary. He spent a considerable time in England, and became familiar with words of exclusively

• Art American Dictionary of the English Language. By Noah Webster, LW)., thoroughly receed, and greatly enlarged and Unproved. By Chauncey A. Cfrooderelt;- D.D., LL.D., and Noah Porter, D.D. Bpriugtleld, Maimisabasedie, Merriam. Leadm: Bell and Daldy.

British growth. It is almost startling to find such words as "little-go," "coach," "poll," "sporting the oak," correctly interpreted, and to observe how, with accurate discrimination, the word " gyp " is described as in use at Cambridge, and the word" scout," with the same meaning, at Oxford.

The etymology of a dictionary is the best test of the accuracy or inaccuracy of its scholarship. The present volume does not always inspire confidence in this respect. Take, for instance, the word telegram. It is now "a spot of barbarity impressed so deep in the English language that criticism never can wash it away," and it has a good right to appear, but it is rather too much to usher the unfortunate child into the world with a flourish of trumpets, proclaiming not only its nationality, but the name of its father, and even of the nurse who first clothed its limbs in print :—

" This word is of recent American origin, its first occurrence being in the following passage from the Albany Evening Journal for April 6, 1852, emanating from Mr. E. P. Smith, of Rochester. A friend desires us to give notice that he will ask leave, at some convenient time, to in- troduce a new word into the vocabulary It is telegram, instead of telegraphic dispatch, or telegraphic communication. The word is formed aecording to the strictest laws of the language from which the root comes. Telegraph means to write from a distance, telegram the writing itself executed from a distance. Monogram, logogram, 4.c., are words formed upon the same analogy, and in good acceptation.' " Poor Mr. E. P. Smith of Rochester ! The infant prodigy, so far from being formed according to the strictest laws of the language from which the root comes, is as malformed as it can be. Monogram and logogram are not formed immediately from ypagno, but from 7paNkce, and upon the same analogy telegram, if it meant anything, would mean "a letter of the alphabet at a dis- tance." The word expressing "to write at a distance" would be in the frequentative form pnxg2pa9E0.1, and the "writing executed at a distance" would be telegrapheme. This was clearly pointed out in a correspondence in the Times about seven years ago.

Webster adopts without comment Johnson's derivation of tinker "from tink, because their way of proclaiming their trade is La beat a kettle, or because in their work they make a tinkling noise !" It is surely impossible to doubt that tin is the root of the word. The presence of the letter k is explained by Mr. Robert Hunt, in a note to his Popular Romances of the West of England, in which he tells us that the old word was tinkeard, and that the Gaelic still retains " ceard " and " caird " to represent the English " smith."

Among other appendices to the body of the work is an "Ex- planatory and Pronouncing Dictionary of the Noted Names of Fiction," &c. This is a gigantic effort at writing in a compre- hensive list a biographical dictionary of the principal characters in all the principal novels, poems, and romances, and the nick- names of all the principal characters in history who ever had nicknames. The following are specimens :—" Apostle of the Frisians, a name given to St. Willibrod," &c. "Grundy, Mrs., a person frequently referred to in Morton's comedy, Speed the Plow," &c. "Vinegar Bible, a name given to an edition of the Bible published in 1717 at the Clarendon Press, Oxford. By a ludicrous misprint, 'Parable of the Vinegar' was substituted for 'Parable of the Vineyard." "Railway Ring,—Mr. Hudson." "Fat Boy, the, a character in Dickens whose employment consists in alternate eating and sleeping." "City of Notions,—Boston." These epithets are distinctive, and have been appropriated as de- scribed, but it is a new idea to be told that the epithet "Bravest of the Brave" is the peculiar property of Marshal Ney, that the "Smoky City" par excellence is Pittsburg, that the " Coryphteus of Grammarians" means Aristarchus, that the "English Aristo- phones" means Foote, the "English Solomon" Henry VII., and so on. Thomas Aquinas comes in at least four times under the several epithets of " Universal Doctor," "Angelic Doctor," " Angel of the Schools," and "Dumb Ox."

Another appendix contains some seventy closely-covered pages of woodcuts, illustrating words chosen pretty much at random from the body of the book. It is not a very useful or suitable addition, and the result is scarcely proportionate to the great labour and east that must have been expended on it. For both these, as for the more valuable appendices, Dr. Webster's posthumous contributors, not he himself, are responsible.

The responsibility and credit of the arrangement and revision of the present edition belong to Professor Porter, of Yale College. Considering the size and the miscellaneous character of the volume, and the number of writers whose contributions had to be revised and incorporated, the learning, laborious industry and patience necessary for such a task must have been great.