138
NOTES AND QUERIES. [9 th s. vn. FEB. IG, 1901.
be traced back to the preposterous spectacular
play * Babil and Bijou,' produced in London
about 1870. E. RIMBAULT DIBDIN.
DEFINITION OF GRATITUDE (9 th S. vii. 89). The Rev. James Wood, in his ' Dictionary of Quotations,' attributes " Gratitude is with most people only a strong desire for greater benefits to come " to La Roche.
EVERARD HOME COLEMAN. 71, Brecknock Road.
NOTES ON BOOKS, &o.
A New English Dictionary on Historical Principles
Edited by Dr. James A. H. Murray. Vol. IV-
F and G. By Henry Bradley, M.A. (Oxford
Clarendon Press.)
IN returning, according to promise, to the fourth volume of the great dictionary which is due to the patient and persistent effort and the unparalleler erudition of Dr. Murray, Mr. Bradley, and their collaborators, and to the loyalty and munificenc of a noble university, which has gone some way towards crippling temporarily its own resources in order to execute a national enterprise we aim principally at recording progress and dwelling afresh upon claims on recognition. The space we can spare to notice new works is obviously and avowedly insignificant. So far as that limitation permits and our own philological knowledge extends, we have drawn attention to the appearance and contents of successive parts, including the parts comprised in the present volume. Were we ever so disposed which our readers know is far from being the case to insist upon the supposed omniscience of the reviewer, there would be something like indecency in pitting our own acquirements or knowledge against the col- lective judgment of the best English scholars. Our functions have, consequently, been those rather of the taster than of the censor. Such they remain. With the appearance of the fourth volume, and the knowledge that the fifth will almost imme- diately be given to the world, the work has made great and recognizable advance. By the close of the present year half will, it may be hoped and supposed, be in the hands of the sub- scribers. By this time, then, surely the dictionary should be known and generally accessible. It is with a feeling akin to dismay that we find corre- spondents who ignore its existence or insist upon the impossibility of obtaining access to it. With something more than dismay do -we see a great newspaper undertaking to commend and circulate a dictionary of foreign (if kindred) growth, which is indeed a most respectable, creditable, useful, and interesting work, but no more like our own dictionary " than I" we may not now say " we"- " to Hercules." When first the huge labour was begun, and one part slowly succeeded another there was excuse for seeking a stopgap, and, while waiting the best, putting up with the good. We owned to feeling for a while despair of seeing so much of the work in type as would render it of practical utility to ourselves. That
period is now long past. Not one day passes
>n which we do not refer once or oftener
- o the portion now in our possession, and it is
with ineffable content that we see that portion continually enlarged. No longer are we able to satisfy ourselves with the meagre information accorded in the dictionaries it is now sought to popularize. Not far off are the days when we had to content ourselves with the dictionary of Richardson, which, imperfect and ill arranged as it was, was an immense advance upon anything that had gone before. Now in stately row stand on our shelves all the recently published works which private industry and energy have supplied. Very creditable are these, and none will grudge we least of all that due recognition and recompense should be awarded to all. Having once, however, consulted the new dictionary, we find it merely tantalizing to turn to others. From the particulars supplied in prefatory notes we have given statistics of the differences between this and previous dictionaries as regards the number of words used in each and that of the illustrative quotations. At a risk of repetition we state that in the letter G we advance from 1,312 words and 3,783 quotations in Johnson to 15.542 words and 63,061 quotations in the new dictionary. These figures give, of course, but a faint idea of what is the real gain to the student. For the first time we now have the genuine history of the word, in its first appearance in the language, its growth, and its disappearance if it have dis- appeared. It would be invidious to make com- parisons, and we have no wish whatever to depreciate the works to which some are in the jiabit of trusting. We do but bear testimony to the value of the book before us, on which we are low accustomed to rely. We open the book absolutely haphazard, and stumble on the substan- tive "ghost." We find first the various forms it lias assumed in the process of development, the derivation from the West German languages, the cognate forms, the explanation, the historical record, and the fourteen principal meanings assigned it, including, of course, the recent and much dis- cussed word, a "sculptor's ghost." In the form " gast" we find it employed in Old English or Anglo- Saxon as early as the ninth century, and in' what may perhaps be called familiar use in the eleventh. How many quotations are given in the four and a half columns devoted to it we have not time to count. They include, of course, Shakespeare's "That affable, familiar .ghost, Which nightly gulls him
with intelligence." Turning to any other dictionary,
we find in place of this full and flowing stream of
information a small rill, and with such we are no
longer to be contented. We therefore protest in
the name of scholarship against the attempt in in-
fluential quarters to substitute another any other
work for this. Littre in Franc'e is in the way of being
supplanted. A century and more must pass before
any similar fate can attend our English dictionary.
It is scarcely too much, indeed, to say that any
future w T ork, when that is needed, will but follow
the lines of this. Some little trouble is involved
in mastering the system, so as to render easy the
task of reference ; labour is, however, well spent
in the effort, and the remuneration is princely. We
have already said that every centre of population
should be provided with the work. It seems worth
while, moreover, to insist upon the expediency
of individual subscription. By the system of
monthly payments now established the expense
