CURRENT LITERATURE.
The Imperial Dictionary. New Edition. By Charles Annandale, M.A. Vol. II., Dep—Kyt. (Blackie and Son.)—Of the second volume of the new edition of this great dictionary, which has been so thoroughly revised as to be really a new work, it is practically suffi- cient to say that it presents the same features as the first,—scientific accuracy of definition, wealth of quotation, and reliability as an authority in etymology. Sometimes, Mr. Annandale, through his quotations, gathers round him a singularly "mixed" literary com- pany. Thus " Ouida" and the eminent Scotch preacher and scholar, Dr. Caird, are brought together as illustrations of " grace." As usual, Mr. Annandale is very cautious in his treat- ment of Scotch and slang words, as when he describes " feckless " as a Scotch word sometimes used by English writers, it being now thoroughly domesticated on this side of the Tweed. Sir Stafford Northcote, on the other hand, may be somewhat relieved to find that "go," to a deficiency of which he pathetically pleads guilty, is quite classicaL A propos of Scotch words, we observe
that Mr. Annandale has not given a colloquial Scotch mean- ing which attaches to "hypothec," and which appears in the phrase " the whole hypothec," meaning "the whole thing."
This omission would hardly be worth calling attention to, were it not that the phrase, used in this sense, occurs in "Through the Cevennes with a Donkey," by the well-known Scotch essayist, Mr. R.
L. Stevenson. "Featherhead " does not appear in the "Imperial's" list of derivatives from "feather." Yet we find Mr. Harley in his
new volume saying, in his address to the Aberdeen students, "It is
whirling featherheads into all sorts of eccentric orbits." Finally, Mr. Annandale seems to have been at a loss for a good quota- tion from a modern writer containing an illustration of the
old-fashioned verb " incarnadine." He would have found snoh an illustration in Mr. Hardy's "Far from the Madding Crowd." At
the close of it, when Bathsheba, having surrendered at discretion to Gabriel Oak, is on the point of starting with him for church, we are told that " Repose had again inoarnadined her cheeks." Mr. Hardy's novels—at least, those which he wrote before he became too busy—will be found by the lexicographer a perfect treasure-house of Elizabethan and even older words and phrases, which it is highly desirable, on account either of the delicacy or of the comprehen- siveness of their meaning, to restore to the currency of speech and writing.
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