_A New Dictionary of the English Language: By Charles Richardson.
London: William Pickering—New York: William Jackson._
The _periodical_ nature of this publication absolves us from what
would otherwise be a just charge of neglect in not speaking of it
sooner. Five numbers have been issued, and twenty-five more are to be
added, at intervals of a fortnight. These numbers are of quarto form,
and contain eighty pages in triple columns. The paper is excellent,
and the matter beautifully stereotyped. The whole will form, when the
publication is completed, two very large quarto volumes, of which the
entire cost will have been fifteen dollars. We say when the
publication is completed—the work itself is already so—a consideration
of great importance, and sure to be appreciated by the thousands of
subscribers to the many costly periodicals which have failed in
completing their issue, and thus thrown a number of odd volumes upon
the hands of the public. In what farther we have to say of this
Dictionary, we shall do little more than paraphrase the very
satisfactory prospectus of Mr. Richardson himself.
When Dr. Johnson, in 1747, announced his intention of writing a
Dictionary of the English language, he communicated the _plan_ of his
undertaking in a letter to Lord Chesterfield. The plan was as follows.
He would give, first—the natural and primitive meaning of words;
secondly, the consequential—and thirdly the metaphorical, arranging
the quotations chronologically. The book, however, was published in
1755, _without the plan_, and strange to say, in utter disregard of
the principles avowed in the letter to the Earl of Chesterfield. That
these principles were well-conceived, and that if followed out, they
would have rendered important service to English lexicography, was not
doubted at the time, and cannot be doubted now. Moreover, the
necessity for something of the kind which was felt _then_, is more
strongly felt now, for no person has as yet attempted to construct a
work upon the plan proposed, and the difficulties which were to have
been remedied, are greatly aggravated by time. Eighty years have
passed, and not only has no new work been written upon the plan of Dr.
Johnson—but no systematic work of reform upon the old basis.
The present Dictionary of Mr. Richardson is, distinctly, a _new work_,
upon a system never attempted before—upon the principles of Horne
Tooke, the greatest of philosophical grammarians, and whose
developments of an entirely novel theory of language have excited the
most profound interest and respect in the minds of all who think.
In the _Diversions of Purley_, it is positively demonstrated that a
word has one meaning and one only, and that from this one meaning all
the _usages_ of the word must spring. “To discover this meaning,” says
Mr. Richardson, “etymological research was indispensable, and I have
stated the results of such research with conciseness, it is true, yet
with a fullness that will enable the more learned reader to form a
judgment for himself, and the path of deeper investigation is
disclosed to the pursuit of the curious inquirer.” In tracing the
_usages_ of words, Mr. R. has availed himself of the materials
collected by Johnson and his editors, “the various supplements and
provincial vocabularies, the notes of editors and commentators upon
our older poets, and of abundant treasures amassed for his own
peculiar use.” The quotations are arranged chronologically, and
embrace extracts from the earliest to the latest writers of English.
The etymology is placed distinctly by itself for the convenience of
hasty reference. As an example of the arrangement of the work, we will
give the word _Calefy_.
CA´LEFY | Lat. _Calefieri_, to be or become hot.
CALEFA´CTION | Calere, Vossius deduces from the Doric
CALI´DITY | Καλεος for Κηλεος, burning.
CA´LIDUCT |
To heat, to be, become, or cause to be hot.
But crystal will _calefie_ into electricity; that is, a power to
attract straws or light bodies and convert the needle freely
placed.—_Brown. Vulgar Errours_, b. ii. c. 1.
As [if] the remembrance of _calefaction_ can warm a man in a cold
frosty night.—_More. Philos. Poems_, c. 2, _Pref._
But ice will dissolve in any way of heat; for it will dissolve with
fire; it will colliquate in water, or warm oyl; nor doth it onely
submit unto an actual heat, but not endure the potential _calidity_
of many waters.—_Brown. Vulgar Errours_. b. ii. c. 1.
Since the subterranean _caliducts_ have been introduced. _Evelyn_.
In his prospectus, Mr. Richardson has had occasion to speak in no
measured terms of the Dictionary of Dr. Webster. We here repeat his
observations because we think them entirely just.
{584} The author is conscious that he should be chargeable with great
want of courtesy if he passed unnoticed the American Dictionary of Dr.
Webster. His _censure_ however must be short. Dr. Webster disarmed and
stripped himself for the field, and advanced unaided and unshielded to
the combat. He abjured the assistance of Skinner and Vossius, and the
learned elders of lexicography; and of Tooke he quaintly says, ‘I have
made no use of his writings.’ There is a display of oriental reading
in his Preliminary Essays, which as introductory to a Dictionary of
the English Language, seems as appropriate and useful as a reference
to the code of Gentoo laws to decide a question of English
inheritance. Dr. Webster was entirely unacquainted with our old
authors.
We believe the North American Review has remarked of the work before
us, that its definitions are in some measure too scanty, and not
sufficiently compact. This defect, which cannot altogether be denied,
and which is, to say the truth, of more importance to the mass of
readers than to the philologist, will be found, upon examination, a
defect inseparable from the plan originally proposed, and which
insists upon an arrangement of derivatives under primitives. We are
not tempted, however, to wish any modification of the principal
design, for the sake of a partial, and not very important amendment.
We conclude in heartily recommending the work of Mr. Richardson to the
attention of our readers. It embraces we think, every desideratum in
an English Dictionary, and has moreover a thousand negative virtues.
Messrs. Mayo and Davis are the agents in Richmond.