SKE AT'S ETYMOLOGICAL DICTIONARY.•

BY the publication of this great work, Professor Skeat has worthily crowned his long list of labours in English study, and, while placing himself incontestably in the front rank of modern etymologists, has taken away a serious reproach from English scholarship. His way has been diligently prepared for him in recent years, not only by his own special study, but by the general advance in philological research, by the priceless activity of the Early English Text and similar Societies, and by the new application of the study of phonetics to the Early-English pronunciation. From his predecessors he has inherited but too little, beyond a damnosa hereditas of uninstructed conjecture, persistent inaccuracy, and hope- less vagueness of reference. Under such trying conditions, a busy man could not but relieve his feelings in caustic expressions of impatience, not untouched with the unconscious pathos of single-minded earnestness. In his preface, Mr. Skeat sets forth with humorous frankness his exceedingly low—we may fairly say, humiliating—estimate of the popular apprehen- thou of philological principles ; and he handles the professional etymologist no less severely than the etymologising layman. There is " Grimm's law," for example. Now, if one look at it for a few moments, there is nothing insuperable, or arduous, in the understanding of Grimm's law. Yet Mr. Skeet affirms that the popular notions about it "are extremely vague." "Many imagine," he bitterly alleges, "that Grimm made the law, not many years ago, since which time Latin and Anglo- Saxon have been bound to obey it." And he actually goes on • An Etymological Dictionary of the English Language. By the Rev. Walter W. Sliest. M.A. Oxford: Clarendon Prem. 1882.

A Concise Etymological Dictionary of the English Language. By the Pomo Author. Clarendon Press Series. 1881.

Contested Etymologies in the Dictionary of the Ren. W. W. Skcat. By Ileneleigh Wedgwood. Loudon : TrUbner and Co. to explain, in dead earnest, that "the word law is there strangely misapprehended ; it is only a law in the sense of an observed fact." Again : — " The most extraordinary fact about comparative philology is that, whilst its principles are well understood by numerous students in Germany and America, they are far from being well known in England, so that it is easy to meet even with classical scholars who have no notion what Grimm's law' really means, and who are entirely at a lose to understand why the English care has no connec- tion with the Latin cura, nor the English whole with the Greek bAos, nor the French charitef with the Greek xclins."

Nor are the etymologists much better than other folk. "The spelling of Anglo-Saxon in some books is often simply out- rageous. Accents are put in or left out at pleasure ; impossible combinations of letters are given ; the number of syllables is disregarded; and grammatical terminations have to take their chance." " In many cases, writers of ' etymological' dictionaries do not trouble to learn even the alphabets of the languages cited from, or the most elementary grammatical facts." " Statements abound which it is difficult to account for, except on the supposition that it must once have been usual to manufacture words, for the express purpose of deriving others from them." Of course, errors are handed down and multiplied generation after generation; that black spot is present in every

department of literary history. Minor troubles need not be referred to, nor need Mr. Skeat's words of complaint be very exactly measured. It is a wholesome frankness. What Mr.

Skeat tells us about his own mode of procedure, also, and his openness to correction and conviction, overspread the Dictionary with a feeling of honesty and trustworthiness and reasonable- ness that adds sensibly to its value.

Apart from the wealth of learning collected in the work, Mr. Skeat's rigid method alone would render the book for a long time to come an example and a standard of scientific etymology. The general plan of arrangement is clear and sufficient. A good many omissions might easily be noted in the vocabulary, probably owing to the somewhat arbitrary principle of selec-

tion. We miss cleat, cosey, coupon, crewel, deft, fad, prole- tariat, quiz, ragamuffin, reboant (E. B. Browning), recalcitrate, tussock, and numerous names of birds, such as fulmar, kestrel, kittiwake, pipit, &c., and of plants ; and although some of the omissions are intrinsically of little importance, still, they are as well worthy of notice as imbroglio, manchineel, moonshee, paddy, pariah, pawnee, tont-tom, &c. Much space is saved by the use of easy abbreviations and symbols. Exceedingly important is the brief account of the history of each word, showing especially the approximate date of its earliest introduction and use. In many cases, we should be glad of more information on this head

than we can obtain ; for, as Mr. Skeat justly says, the tracing-

back of the vocables to the first known use is the primary rule of etymology, and all-important. He confesses, as his own experience, that, in the process of following back the words to their original use and sense, the etymology usually presented itself unasked. This result emphasises the necessity of further enlargement of our glossaries,

both in new words and in new forms of words already col-

lected, as a first step from conjecture to certainty in a large number of cases. " Kilian's strange error in connecting wood- wale with wood was due, probably, to the loss of the cognate word to wood in Dutch," as Mr. Skeet points out. So in the case of intermediate forms :—For example, Mr. Skeat " almost certainly" identifies quandary with the earlier wandreth, but he quotes no use or undoubted form of " quandary " previous to Beaumont and Fletcher, and thus neglects to assist less agile etymologists over the difficulty of the accent on the penultimate syllable. The successive changes of meaning that words have undergone, if in like manner more fully ascertained, would be helpful etymologically ; and Mr. Skeat does record such known changes where he conceives it to be absolutely necessary, although this happens but sparingly. Both as to use and as to sense, the examples of the forthcoming opus magnum of the Philological Society will, no doubt, clear up numerous difficulties that now baffle certain solution. But, after all, the defective literary preservation of words and forms of words will still leave the opportunity of imagining alliances 'where no alliances exist. A similar line of precautionary remark is much more necessary in the case of tracing words back to roots. Mr. Skeat freely invokes the names of Cutting, Fick, and others, and intends to limit himself to such cases as "scarcely admit of a doubt." The ordinary student, who lacks the experience and caution of Mr. Skeet, will do well to take very good care how he deals with

such delicate matters as Aryan roots. Without quite following Mr. Skeet in all cases so far back, we can join with him in his scorn of the absurd treatment of English as an isolated language, and admire how clearly and forcibly he has brought out the relation of English to cognate tongues, and how firmly he has maintained the vital distinction between cognation and deriva- tion. The comments, discussions, suggestions, and specula- tions, so frequently introduced, might occasionally have been cut shorter ; but if there be a fault here at all, it is a fault that leans to virtue's side. A large amount of varied collateral matter forms a useful appendix.

There is endless matter of interest and entertainment in fol- lowing the vicissitudes of words, on any one of Mr. Skeet's eight hundred quarto pages. It would be pleasant to trace the con- nection of such apparently dissimilar words as physic, future, fecundity, felicity, be, boor, and of such incongruous words as home, city, quiet, cemetery, comic; such accommodated forms as causeway and crayfish ; such utter corruptions as counterpane ; such hydraulic compressions as age ; the partially common origin of prose and verse ; and the secret relations of such an ominous trio as critic, certain, garble ; and to show that scissors is, by rights, a plural of chisel; and to smile over the numerous in- stances of the national dropping of h's. But for all that, we must refer to the volume itself. We will rather turn to disputable points for a moment. Mr. Skeet, who is under no illusion as to his infallibility, will, no doubt, welcome the outspoken criticism of Mr. Hensleigh Wedgwood, who has already announced his dis- sent from some two hundred of these etymologies. Mr. Wedg- wood's articles are learned and ingenious, and although they frequently fail to command agreement in whole or in part, they are still in numerous points to be calmly reckoned with. In spite of a reasonable dread of the " reddin'-stroke," we cannot but remark that Mr. Wedgwood points out not a few misapprehensions and inconsistencies of Mr. Skeet's; and that, after chiding Mr. Skeat for too hasty judgment, he at once proceeds to imitate the ex- ample he has just censured. Chap (" fellow "), Mr. Skeat says, is an abbreviation of chapman. Mr. Wedgwood fancies he has demolished his adversary, when he says, "This is a bare guess, supported by no evidence that chapman itself was ever used in such a sense." Now, Mr. Skeat might, indeed, have pointed out (as Mr. Annandale does) the analogy of merchant, and especially of customer. (Has not " customer " undergone similar curtailment also in the American cuss ?) But surely, since chap was used in the pedlar-sense of chapman, it is wholly unnecessary to require evidence of the use of chapman itself as " fellow." One cannot absolutely and out of hand reject Mr. Wedgwood's derivation from Dan. kiceft (or allied form), "the cheek." But he gives no definite historical explanation of the spread of the usage, and the date of the earliest known use of chap as" fellow" seems to tell against the presumption he raises. The plain fact is, that here we have lighted upon an accidental example of the point we were urging before,—that a more com- plete investigation of the actual occurrences of the vocables in literature and common speech is needed, to settle definitely even conjectures that compete for public favour on such unequal grounds as these. Or take the case of cave in, which Mr. Wedgwood holds to be for calve in. The same remarks apply; and possibly, in some similar cases, there may have been a union of streams from different origins. Meantime, the disagreement of the doctors seems to recommend tolerance of suggestions, where there is little real basis for inference (always provided that guesses are not elevated into facts), and contentment to acknowledge our grounds of uncertainty, where we cannot show

with tolerable clearness the steps whereby we would fain go forward to advanced positions. Surely, Mr. Wedgwood is right as to argosy (for "ragusy "), and Mr. Annandale as to cockroach (Span., cucaracha). Office is given by Mr. Skeat as from opi, crude form of opes (wealth), hardly from opus (work), owing,

presumably, to the difficulty of the stem oper- ; yet elsewhere (under operate) he admits the derivation from oper-, and we are not aware that any difficulty has been made about the deriva-

tion of officina from opus, to which the same objection would lie. Mr. Skeat, unfortunately, does not treat officinal. We are glad to have Mr. Skeet's decided pronouncement that reliable "is by no means a new word," and that it "has completely established itself," although " many frivolous and ignorant objections have been made to it."

The school dictionary is also confined exclusively to etymo- logical explanation. One feature of it we dislike heartily,—the inconvenient grouping of allied words together, in defiance of alphabetic arrangement. Mr. Skeet should have remembered that the principle of shirking unnecessary trouble toes not exhaust itself in phonetic modifications of language; it may lead to the neglect of much useful study. If a boy turn up able, average, binnacle, cohabit, debenture, debilitate, debt, deshabille, devoir, due, duty, endeavour, exhibit, or habiliment, he finds in each case a reference to habit, under which they are all explained ; because, forsooth, they all come from habeo. This is a profound mistake. Otherwise, it is a thoroughly good book. The great dictionary must find a place in every considerable library, and on the table of every serious student of English; the "Con- cise" dictionary will regulate the scientific study of English etymology in everyoccondary school.