_An American Dictionary of the English Language._ By NOAH
WEBSTER, LL.D. Thoroughly revised, and greatly enlarged and
improved, by CHAUNCEY A. GOODRICH, LL.D., etc., and NOAH
PORTER, D.D., etc. Springfield, Mass.: G. & C. Merriam. Royal
4to. pp. lxxii., 1768.
Beyond cavil, this portly and handsome volume makes good the claim which
is set forth on the title-page. The revision which the old edition has
undergone is manifestly a most thorough one, extending to every
department of the work, and to its minutest details. The enlargement it
has received is very considerable, the size of the page having been
increased, and more than eighty pages added to the number contained in
the previous or "Pictorial" edition. The improvements are not only
really such, but they are so many and so great that they amount to a
complete remodelling of the work; and hence the objections heretofore
brought against it--many of them very justly--have, for the most part,
no longer any validity or pertinency. It may be questioned, however,
whether the Dictionary, in view of the manifold and extensive changes
which have been made in its matter and plan, should not be said to have
been _based_ on that of Dr. Webster rather than to be _by_ him. St.
Anthony's shirt cannot be patched and patched forever and still remain
St. Anthony's shirt. But there is doubtless much virtue in a name, and,
so long as the publishers have given us a truly excellent work, it
matters little by what title they choose to call it.
We are amazed at the vastness of the vocabulary, which embraces upwards
of one hundred and fourteen thousand words, being some ten thousand
more, it is claimed, than any other word-book of the language. Such
unexampled fulness would be apt to excite a suspicion that a
deliberately adopted system of crimping had been carried on within the
tempting domains of the natural sciences, to furnish recruits for this
enormous army of vocables. But we do not find, upon a pretty careful
examination, that many terms of this sort have been admitted which are
not fairly entitled to a place in a popular lexicon.
In the matter of definition, we can unqualifiedly commend the principles
by which the editor and his coadjutors appear to have been guided,
notwithstanding an occasional failure to carry out these principles with
entire consistency. The crying fault of mistaking different applications
of a meaning of a word for essentially different significations--the
head and front of Dr. Webster's offending as a definer, and not of Dr.
Webster only, but of almost all other lexicographers--has generally been
avoided in this edition. The philosophical analysis, the orderly
arrangement of meanings, the simplicity, comprehensiveness, and
precision of statement, the freedom from prejudice, crotchets, and
dogmatism, the good taste and good sense, which characterize this
portion of the work, are deserving of the fullest recognition and the
highest praise.
In the department of etymology, the revision has been thorough indeed,
and, as all the world knows, the Dictionary stood sadly enough in need
of it. But we were not prepared for so entire and fearless an
overhauling of Dr. Webster's "Old Curiosity Shop," or for a contribution
to philological science so valuable and original. It is not too much to
say that no other English dictionary, and no special treatise on English
etymology, that has yet appeared, can compare with it. As a fitting
introduction to the subject, a "Brief History of the English Language,"
by Professor James Hadley, is prefixed to the vocabulary, and will well
repay careful study.
No excellences, however, we apprehend, in definition or etymology will
reconcile scholars to those peculiarities of spelling which are commonly
known as Websterianisms, and which, with a few exceptions, are retained
in the edition before us. The pages of this magazine are evidence that
we ourselves regard them with no favor. But we are bound, in common
honesty, to state, that, in every case in which Dr. Webster's
orthography is given, it is accompanied by the common spelling, and
thus the user of the book is left at liberty to take his choice of
modes. We are also bound, in common fairness, to admit that many, if not
all, of the quite limited number of changes put forward in the later
editions of the Dictionary are, in themselves considered, unquestionable
improvements, and that, if adopted by the whole English-writing public
on both sides of the water, or even in this country alone, would redeem
our common language from some of the gross anomalies and grievous
confusion which now make it a monster among the graphic systems of the
world, and a stumbling-block and stone of offence to all who undertake
to learn it. Furthermore, it must be conceded that almost all our
lexicographers have been nearly or quite as ready as Dr. Webster to
attempt improvements in orthography, though they may have shown more
discretion than he. It is not generally known, we suspect, but it is
none the less a fact, that Johnson, Todd, Perry, Smart, Worcester, and
various other eminent orthographers, have all deviated more or less from
actual usage, in order to carry out some "principle" or "analogy" of the
language, or to give sanction and authority to some individual fancy of
their own. So much may be said in defence of Dr. Webster against the
ignorant vituperation with which he has often been assailed. But, on the
other hand, he is fairly open to the charge of having violated his own
canons in repeated instances. To take a single case, why should he not
have spelt _until_ with two _l_s, instead of one,--as he does "distill,"
"fulfill," etc.,--when it was so desirable to complete an analogy, and
when he had for it the warrant of a very common, if not the most
reputable, usage? Again, it seems to us, that, if our orthography is to
be reformed at all, it should be reformed not indifferently, but
altogether; for it is, beyond controversy, atrociously bad, poorly
fulfilling, as Professor Hadley justly remarks, (p. xxviii.,) its
original and proper office of indicating pronunciation, while it no
better fufils the improper office, which some would assert for it, of a
guide to etymology. Emendations on the here-a-little-there-a-little
plan, while they do no harm, do little good. They are but topical
remedies, which cannot restore the pristine vigor of a ruined
constitution. What we need is a reform as thorough-going as that which
has been effected in the Spanish language. Shall we ever have it? or
will the irrational conservatism of the educated classes, in all time to
come, prevent a consummation so desirable, and so desiderated by the
philologist? Max Mueller thinks that perhaps our posterity, some three
hundred years hence, may write as they speak,--in other words, that our
orthography will by that time have become a phonetic one. It is not safe
to prophesy; but, whether such a result comes soon or late, the credit
of having accomplished it will not be due to those "half-learned and
parcel-learned" persons who consider the present written form of the
language as a thing "taboo," and look with such horror upon all attempts
to better its condition.
As regards pronunciation, we think this will be generally considered one
of the strong points of the new Dictionary. The introductory treatise on
the "Principles of Pronunciation" is a comprehensive, instructive, and
eminently practical, though not very philosophically constructed,
exposition of the subject of English orthoepy. It contains an analysis
and description of the elementary sounds of the language, a discussion
of certain questions about which orthoepists are at variance, and a
useful collection of facts, rules, and directions respecting a variety
of other matters falling within its scope. As a sort of pendant to this,
we have a "Synopsis of Words differently pronounced by Different
Orthoepists," which those who regulate their pronunciation by written
authorities or opinions may find it useful to consult. The
pronunciations given in the body of the work appear to be conformed to
the usage of the best speakers. We notice with gratification that such
vulgarisms as ab'do-men, pus'sl (for pust'ule!), s_w_ord (for sord),
etc., no longer continue to deface the book.
A large number of wood-cuts, mostly selected with good judgment and
skilfully engraved, adorn the pages, and throw light upon the
definitions. Besides being inserted in the vocabulary in connection with
the words they illustrate, they are brought together, in a classified
form, at the end of the volume. This is claimed as an "obvious
advantage."
We have left ourselves but little space to notice the very rich and
attractive Appendix, the first fifty pages of which are taken up with
an "Explanatory and Pronouncing Vocabulary of the Names of Noted
Fictitious Persons and Places," etc., by William A. Wheeler. The
conception of such a work was singularly happy, as well as original,
and, on the whole, the task has been executed with commendable fidelity
and discretion. That occasional omissions and mistakes should be
discovered will probably surprise no one less than the author. Attention
has elsewhere been publicly called, in particular, to the fact that Owen
Meredith is given as the pseudonyme of Sir Bulwer Lytton instead of his
son, E. R. Bulwer: this would seem to be a bad blunder, but we
understand that it was a mere error of oversight, and that it was
corrected before the Dictionary was fairly in the market. If other
mistakes should be brought to light,--and what work of such multiplicity
was ever free from them?--Mr. Wheeler will doubtless call to mind,
and his readers must not forget, the eloquent excuse which Dr.
Johnson offers, in the preface to his Dictionary, for his own
shortcomings:--"That sudden fits of inadvertency will surprise
vigilance, slight avocations will seduce attention, and casual eclipses
of the mind will darken learning; and that the writer shall often in
vain trace his memory at the moment of need for that which yesterday he
knew with intuitive readiness, and which will come uncalled into his
thoughts to-morrow." The "Pronouncing Vocabularies of Modern
Geographical and Biographical Names, by J. Thomas, M. D.," are evidently
the product of laborious and conscientious research; and, while we
differ widely from Dr. Thomas on various points, general and particular,
we must allow that his vocabularies are as yet the only ones of the kind
which approximate with any nearness to the character of an authoritative
standard. The other Vocabularies or "Tables" of the Appendix seem also
to have been prepared with sound judgment and much painstaking, but we
cannot dwell upon them.
To sum up, in all the essential points of a good dictionary,--in the
amplitude and selectness of its vocabulary, in the fulness and
perspicacity of its definitions, in its orthoepy and (_cum grano salis_)
its orthography, in its new and trustworthy etymologies, in the
elaborate, but not too learned treatises of its Introduction, in its
carefully prepared and valuable appendices,--briefly, in its general
accuracy, completeness, and practical utility,--the work is one which
none who read or write can henceforward afford to dispense with.
Mindful of the old adage, we have instituted no comparison between
Webster and Worcester. If the latter, excellent as it is, should now be
found in some respects inferior to the former, it is to be remembered
that the present edition of Webster has the great advantage of being
four or five years later in point of time, and that it has been enriched
by the use of materials which were not accessible to Worcester. We are
glad to see a handsome tribute to the learning and industry of Dr.
Worcester, and an honest acknowledgment of indebtedness to his labors,
in Professor Porter's Preface. This is as it should be; and we hope that
the publishers, on both sides, acting in the same spirit, will forego
all unfriendly controversy. Let there be no new War of the Dictionaries.
The world is wide enough for both, and both are monuments of industry,
judgment, and erudition, in the highest degree creditable to American
scholarship, and unequalled by anything that has yet been done by
English philologists of the present century.
_Dramatis Personae._ By ROBERT BROWNING. Boston: Ticknor and
Fields.
The title of this new volume of poems expresses the peculiarity which we
find in everything that Mr. Browning composes. Notwithstanding the
remoteness of his moods, and the curious subtilty with which he follows
the trace of exceptional feelings, he impersonates dramatically: there
may be few such people as these choice acquaintances of his genius, but
they are persons, and not mere figures labelled with a thought. Pippa,
Guendolen, Luria, the Duchess, Bishop Blougram, Fra Lippo Lippi, are
persons, however much they may be given to episodes and reverie. You
find a great deal that is irrelevant to the thorough working-out of a
character, much that is not simply individual: Mr. Browning gets
sometimes in the way, so that you lose sight of his companion, but it
is not as Punch's master overzealously pulls the wires of his puppets.
You would not say that a man can find many such companions, but you
cannot deny that they are vividly described. Perhaps they appear in only
one or two moods, but these have individual life. They are discovered in
rare exalted or peculiar moments, but these are in costume and bathed in
color. Shutting and opening many doors, balked at one vestibule and
traversing another, suddenly you surprise the lord or mistress of the
mansion, or from some threshold you silently observe their secret
passion, which is unconscious of the daylight, and is caught in all its
frankness. You come upon people, and not upon pictures in a house.
But the pictures, too, in all Mr. Browning's interiors, seem to have
grown out of the life of the persons. He has not merely come in and hung
them up, as poor artist or upholsterer, to make a sumptuous house for
fine people to move into. The character in any one of his poems seems to
have devised the furnishing: it is distinct, exterior, not always
helping or expressing the character's thought, sometimes to be referred
to that only with an effort, but still no other character could have so
furnished his house. You can find the individuality everywhere, if you
care to take the trouble. But if you are in haste, or do not
particularly sympathize with the person whose drama you surprise, you
and he will be together like vagrants in a gallery, who long for a
catalogue, dislocate their necks, and anathematize the whole collection.
But do not then say that you have gauged and criticized the life that
streams from Mr. Browning's pen.
How vivid and personal is, for instance, "Pictor Ignotus," one of the
earlier poems! The painter is no longer unknown, for his mood betrays
and describes him. It is not merely his speaking in the first person
which saves him from melting into an abstraction, but it is that the "I"
takes flesh and lives; the poet dramatizes or _shows_ him.
Of this class of poems is the one entitled "Abt Vogler" in the present
volume. The Abbot was a famous musician and organist, the teacher of
Meyerbeer. Concerning the new kind of organ which he invented, and which
he called an "Orchestricon," we know nothing, save that its effects were
merely amplifications of those belonging to an organ. The poem describes
the awe and rapture which fill the soul of a great organist when the
instrument shudders, soars, rejoices in his inspiration. It is not the
description of a musical mood, but the showing of a man who has the
mood. It is the exultation and religious feeling of a man in the very
act. The noble lines are not fine things attempting to set forth the
metaphysics of musical expression and enjoyment, but they represent a
man at the very climax of his musical passion. Is the effect any the
less dramatic because the man is not committing a murder, or conspiring,
or seducing, or overreaching, or infecting an honest ear with jealousy?
It is not so theatrical, because the emotion itself is not so broad and
popular, but its inmost genius is dramatic.
"A Death in the Desert" is another poem that attempts to restore a
fleeting moment, full of profound thought and feeling, by giving it
individuals, and showing them living in it, instead of meditating about
it with fine after-thoughts. Pamphylax describes the death of St. John
in a desert cave. At first the individuals are clearly seen; but the
poem soon lapses into philosophizing, and winds up with theology. Still,
here is the power of reproducing the tone and sentiments of a
long-buried and forgotten epoch, as if the matters involved had
immediate interest and were vigorously mauled in all the newspapers. St.
John might have died last week, or we might be Syrian converts of the
second century, dissolved in tenderness at the thought that the Beloved
Disciple at last had gone to lay his head again upon the Master's bosom.
The poem talks as if it were trying to satisfy this mixture of memory
and curiosity.
Some of the best lines ever written by Mr. Browning are here. Take
these, for instance. Pamphylax, reporting John's last words, as the
hoary life flickered and clung, gives this:--
"A stick, once fire from end to end;
Now ashes, save the tip that holds a spark!
Yet, blow the spark, it runs back, spreads itself
A little where the fire was: thus I urge
The soul that served me, till it task once more
What ashes of my brain have kept their shape,
And these make effort on the last o' the flesh,
Trying to taste again the truth of things."