210
NOTES AND QUERIES. [9 th s. xn. SEPT. 12, 1903.
suggesting approximately the date of their
disappearance from use. But in the case of
living words the 'Dictionary' is itself the
authority for their current use (in the
opinion of its editors and their literary
advisers) at the date of publication ;
and all that is aimed at in choosing
quotations is to carry out as far as
possible the principle laid down in the
'General Explanations/ p. xxii, of about
one quotation for each century. This means
choosing from our available nineteenth-cen-
tury quotations, which may be five or may
be fifty, the quotation which, all things con-
sidered, appears to us most useful, without
any regard whatever to the part of the nine-
teenth (or twentieth) century to which it
may belong. If we were making a dictionary
in twenty volumes instead of ten a much
easier and quicker business it would be
possible to give twice as many quotations, or
even more, and then we might indulge in
two, or even three, instances of every word
and sense for the nineteeth century, choosing
one from the beginning, one from the middle,
and one from the end ; but where we are so
restricted as to space that we can afford, in the
case of ordinary words, that show no variety
of form, use, or construction, to give one
quotation only, it would surely be folly to
give the latest in preference to that which
we consider (for our purpose) the best. It
would, for example, often mean giving a
quotation from an obscure author or a news-
paper in preference to one from a writer of
authority, and would necessitate a general
neglect of early and mid-century writers for
those of the last few years, and the preferring
of a poor quotation, which added nothing to
the information given in earlier instances, to
one which enriched the article and all this
only in order to prove that the * Dictionary '
is right in treating "ostrich" as a living
ngi
word !
I am sorry that even one reader of the
- Dictionary ' should think that its " back-
incompleteness which is detrimental to the
esteem " which it deserves ; but I am satis-
fied that the feeling is not that of readers
generally. I have met with it only in special-
ists in a particular science, who forgot that a
dictionary is a book of words, and persisted
in looking at it as a current text-book of
their own science. Thus, one chemist thought
the dictionary "very good " but its chemistry
" rather out of date," because it contains all
the obsolete terms com mop with the chemists
of 1800, of many of which even he did not
know the meaning and which. " are no longer
of any use." I suggested that if ever he came
to write a history of chemistry, he might be
glad to turn to the ' Dictionary ' for the
explanation of the historical terms of his
own science.
When ME. GILL can cite an earlier instance of the word ornithology than that given in the ' Dictionary,' it will be proper to write about it ; meanwhile would it not be better to accept the 'Dictionary' date, and give the editors credit for doing their duty, rather than express a bare suspicion that they have not?
Okapi, as a word for which no quotation was available before 1901, is, of course, reserved for the Supplement. For the notes on the other words MR. GILL has our thanks. What a pity they were not sent us before, instead of after, the editing of the words.
J. A. H. MURRAY.
As MR. GILL seems well informed on the subject of the " candle-fish," I should like to ask if he knows the origin of its native name. Both Dr. Murray and myself made efforts to trace it, but in vain. The nearest I have got to it is the Chinook equivalent, ulan, which, however, is obviously inadequate, since all the English variants are longer by a syllable. The term will probably come up for treat- ment again in the ' N.E.D.' under letter U, as, besides eulachon, oolachan, oolakan, oulachan, there exists a spelling uthlecan, used by Washington Irving in his ' Astoria,' 1836, vol. ii. p. 269. JAMES PLATT, Jun.
SHAKESPEARE'S SONNETS : A NEW THEORY (9 th S. xii. 141). Literary criticism must be at a singularly low ebb if it cannot distin- guish between the styles of Barnabe Barnes and William Shakespeare. If the extracts from Barnes's Sonnets given by MR. STRO- NACH are a fair specimen of his handicraft, then I think it would be about as ne--r the mark to attribute * Locksley Hall ' to Eliza Cook as to suggest that Sonnet 86 -r, the work of Barnes. But why should virious hands be supposed to have been at w rk on these sonnets? What internal evideice is there of the fact ? None that I know oi The style throughout is the same inimitable work of the master hand. What external evdence is there? None. MR. STRONACH'S founlation of Jaggard's pirated work is rnuci too slender to bear the weight of the superstruc- ture he would impose upon it, and it is, in fact, no evidence at all.
I would, in conclusion, beg to demur to MR. STRONACH'S remarks about the 'Pas-
