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MODERN LEXICOGRAPHY.

BY JOHN S. HART.

is settledness, firmness, fixedness, stability.
Robert of Brunne also, a little earlier than
Wickliffe, uses setness (another form for sad-
ness) in the sense of settlement, settled agree-
ment. A few quotations from Wickliffe's trans-
lation of the New Testament, will show that
the idea here suggested is no conceit.
"The stream beat vehemently upon that

"For it was founded upon a sad stone." Wickliffe.

THE science of Lexicography has at length assumed a well-defined shape, which must have the happiest effect upon all future labours in this department. The labours of the earlier lexicographers, and the materials collected by them, were immense. Stephens's Thesaurus, for instance, under the old system of indiscriminate accumulation, reached the size of ten volumes folio. Yet this great wealth of learn-house, and could not shake it, for it was ing was comparatively useless, for want of a founded upon a rock." Luke vi. 48. proper comprehension of the thing to be done, and a proper classification of the materials in accordance with this generic idea. For the study of the Greek language, the work of the least real practical value that one could probably have in his library, would be this same Thesaurus. Horne Tooke was the first to make known the great leading idea which must lie at the root of all true and rational lexicography. The principle for which he contended in the Diversions of Purley," and which he successfully established, is this: that every word has one primary radical meaning, and one only; and that from it all other meanings must be derived in logical and historical order.

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"The foundation of God standeth sure." 2 Tim. ii. 19.

"The sad foundation of God standeth." Wickliffe.

"We then that are strong (Vulgate, firmiores) ought to bear the infirmities of the weak.' Rom. xv. 1.

"We sadder men." Wickliffe.

"If we hold the beginning of our confidence steadfast unto the end." Heb. iii. 14.

"If we hold the beginning of his substance, sad in the end." Wickliffe.

"Joying and beholding your order, and the steadfastness of your faith in Christ." Colossians ii. 5.

"Seeing your order, and the sadness of your belief in Christ." Wickliffe.

"Beware, lest ye also, being led away with the error of the wicked, fall from your own steadfastness." 2 Peter iii. 17.

"Fall away from your own sadness." Wickliffe.

A necessary inference from this principle is, that the only sure way to ascertain the meaning of a word is to study it historically, that is, to collect passages in which the word occurs, from writers of different ages, and to arrange these passages in chronological order, beginning with the very earliest. The historical usage when thus ascertained shows, in almost every case, a literal and primary meaning, connected with some material and external act Now, taking this historical basis as the true or object, with which all the other meanings one, we find the primary, literal meaning of are clearly connected by metaphor, metonymy, 'sad' to be fixed, steadfast, as applied to exteror other figure of speech. Thus, for instance, nal or material objects. When by metaphor we find the word "sad" in Wickliffe, and the the same word was applied to express a certain early writers, used in a way which shows at state of the mind, it acquired the present comonce its derivation, and the logical connexion mon idea of sedate, grave, gloomy, &c., derived and dependence of its various meanings. Wick-in logical order from the primary, literal notion. liffe translates the Latin petra, "a sad stone;" he also renders firmitas, firmamentum, immobilitas, "sadness," as the "sadness of your belief," where the common translation has "the steadfastness of your belief." These facts point clearly to the historical origin of the word. It is the past participle (saet, saed, or sad) of the Anglo-Saxon verb settan or saetan (sedere, sedare), and it means set or settled. Asad stone," (Wickliffe) is a set, fixed, firm stone. Sadness (Wickliffe, for firmitas, firmamentum,)

VOL. VII.

22

Let us take another instance. The word "dull" may be traced to a literal primary meaning, that of bluntness or thickness in the edge of any sharp instrument, such as a knife. An instrument thus "dull" is inactive and slow in accomplishing its appropriate work. A state similar to this (and this similarity is the essence of a metaphor) may be supposed to exist in the mental or moral powers. The blade is dull literally, the man metaphorically. Again, by the common figure of speech, known

as metonymy, putting cause for effect, &c., we call anything "dull" which makes us feel dull, as the weather. And so, by various figures of speech, the word seems to have acquired a great variety of meanings; but through them all the one, leading, pervading idea may be, and in all proper lexicography must be, clearly traced.

This then is the true business of the lexicographer. His office is to ascertain and set forth, in an intelligible manner, the meaning of words. To do this, he must first of all investigate their history, and give the usage of each at successive periods, as shown by extracts from the writers of the language, arranged in chronological order. Such a method produces clearness and certainty. It enables him to bring together, into a small compass, all that can be usefully said on each topic. What is of still more importance, it enables the student to take in the full meaning and usage of a word at a single glance. By the old method of stringing together a confused and irregular mass of epithets, without any logical dependence, or any apparent connexion, except that which arises from numbering the so-called different meanings, the mind becomes perfectly bewildered. To use a not very elegant, but certainly very apt illustration, it is like "looking for a needle in a haystack."

7. Gross, cloggy, vile.

8. Not exhilarating, not delightful.
9. Not bright.

10. Drowsy, sleepy.

Why the great lexicographer stopped at the tenth, unless he himself became "drowsy," it would be difficult to say. It would have been just as easy to string together a hundred loose epithets and vague circumlocutions for dulness, as to pause where he did. In some cases, he has gone, and others have followed his footsteps, to the enormous absurdity of giving twenty, thirty, or forty unconnected definitions of a single word. This is sheer nonsense. Each word has, and can have, but one independent meaning. If it appear to have two, historical research will probably show that there are in reality two independent words under one form. We have a beautiful instance of this in the word “rack.”

The common word "rack," meaning "torture," is from the Anglo-Saxon "wræcan,” to wreak (Latin, exercere, agitare, affligere, infligere, punire). The literal meaning, and its various metaphorical applications are so obvious, that no illustrations are required. But there is another word, spelled in its modern form with the same letters, and pronounced in the same way, which the older commentators racked their brains greatly to torture into some meaning akin to the former. This other "rack" is the Anglo-Saxon "reác,” or “réc,” smoke, steam, from the verb "recan" or "reócan," to smoke, reek, cast forth vapours. Hence the verb to reek, or to rack (two modes of spelling), means to send forth vapour or smoke, to move like vapour or smoke. The noun "rack" is that which is "racked" or "reek

I repeat, then, the only rational basis for a dictionary, is to trace each word to one primary, literal meaning, and to do this not by fanciful conjectures, but by rigid historical research. Johnson's definitions have acquired great celebrity. But it is in spite of his method, not by virtue of it. It is in consequence of the masculine grasp of his intellect, and his own extraordinary facility in the use of lan-ed," vapour, steam, exhalation, fume. guage. He had a rare gift for seeing the exact meaning of a word as now used, and of stating that meaning with clearness and point. But he had no adequate conception of the truth, since so clearly developed, that a word has really but one primitive meaning, to which all its secondary and distinctive meanings may be traced, and under which they should be arranged. He gives, for instance, ten different meanings of the word "dull," thrown together pell-mell, without any recognised order, logical or historical, but on the principle apparently of "take your choice," as a boy would empty a bag of marbles on the floor for the use of his playmates. Thus ;

"The winds in the upper regions, which move the clouds above (which we call the rack), and are not perceived below, pass without noise." Bacon, Nat. Hist.

1. Stupid, doltish, blockish, unapprehensive, indocile, slow of understanding.

2. Blunt, obtuse.

3. Unready, awkward.

4. Hebetated, not quick.

5. Sad, melancholy.

6. Sluggish, heavy, slow of motion.

"Full many a glorious morning have I seen

Flatter the mountain tops with sovereign eye,
Kissing with golden face the meadows green,
Gilding pale streams with heavenly alchymy,
Anon, permit the basest clouds to ride
With ugly rack on his celestial face."
SHAKESPEARE'S SONNETS.
"These our actors

(As I foretold you), are all spirits, and
Are melted into air, into thin air;
And, like the baseless fabric of this vision,
The cloud-capped towers, the gorgeous palaces,
The solemn temples, the great globe itself,
Yea, all which it inherit, shall dissolve,
And, like this insubstantial pageant faded,
Leave not a rack behind."

SHAKESPEARE'S TEMPEST.

"That which is now a horse, even with a thought The rack distimes, and makes it indistinct

As water is in water."

SHAKS. ANTONY AND CLEOPATRA.

"A thousand leagues I have cut through empty air, Far swifter than the sailing rack that gallops Upon the wings of angry winds."

BEAUMONT AND FLETCHER.

"Shall I stray

In the middle air, and stay

The sailing rack."

BEAUMONT AND FLETCHER.

"As when loud Boreas, with his blustering train,
Stoops from above, incumbent on the main;
Where'er he flies, he drives the rack before,
And rolls the billows on the Egean shore."
DRYDEN.

"The hooded Erne
Climbs on strong winds the storm, and screaming high,
Rides the dim rack that sweeps the darkened sky.”
LEYDEN.

"Then sadly the housewife points her hand
Where the red harvest moon uprose,
Begirt with a dim and watery band,
While in her path dark storm-clouds close,
That chase her on to her zenith's height,
Dogging her steps in dusky pack,
Then hide from the earth her sober light,
And blot her noon with misty rack.”

BOKER'S SONG OF THE WIND.

I suppose, then, it will be conceded that "rack," vapour, and "rack," torture, instead of being two independent meanings of the same word, are two independent words, derived from different roots, and having no connexion except that in their later forms they have been accidentally reduced to the same spelling. In like manner, all cases of two or more independent meanings to one word may be solved, without infringing the great principle already named, that each word has but one, leading, primary, independent meaning.

The first, perhaps, to announce this great principle, was Scaliger. His language is: "Unius namque vocis una tantum sit significatio propria ac princeps; cæteræ aut communes, aut accessoriæ, aut etiam spuriæ." Although, however, Scaliger here clearly recognized the principle, he did not insist upon it, nor so enforce it either upon his own mind, or the minds of others, as to produce any visible results upon the labours of scholars. They still went on, heaping up definitions, till it became next to impossible to find out from a dictionary what a word meant. Horne Tooke, on the other hand, not only announced the principle, but discussed it, and argued it, and enforced it with so much learning and acumen, that it arrested the attention of the learned, and has finally become among critics a part of the settled faith.

Perhaps the most complete example which we have in any language, of the new mode of lexicography, is in the Greek. The first writer who ventured to construct a dictionary of the Greek language avowedly on this principle, was Francis Passow, a Professor in one of the

German Universities. The first part of his work appeared in 1819. His plan, as announced by himself, was, in defining each word, to give first the meaning as found in Homer and Hesiod, after that the usage of the old Lyric and Elegiac poets, and of the prose of Herodotus and Hippocrates, after that the usage of the Attic writers, both poetical and prose, &c.; in short, to make each article a history of the usage of the word referred to. This was Passow's plan. He did not live to carry it out fully. But in the four editions of the work which occurred before his death in 1833, he succeeded in incorporating into his lexicon the Homeric, and the earliest post-Homeric usage, and also partially that of Herodotus, the meanings and examples being in all cases arranged in chronological order.

The work thus left unfinished by Passow, was taken up in England, and carried out to its legitimate results. Messrs. Liddell and Scott, of the University of Oxford, have not so much translated Passow's work from the German into English, as they have made a new one on the basis of his. They have taken the work as he left it, and carried it out on his plan; that is to say, beginning with each word at the point to which it is carried in Passow, they have traced its history, and given examples illustrative of its gradual changes of meaning, through all the earlier writers not explored by Passow, and finally with great thoroughness through the whole body of the Attic writers, and even to some extent through the writers of the post-Attic and the Alexandrine periods. They have also given with distinctness the New Testament and Septuagint usage. The work is not without imperfections. But it is the best model extant of the new principle of lexicography.

Freund's Lexicon of the Latin Language, (in German,) the publication of which commenced in 1834, and was completed in 1845, is constructed on similar principles. As this is about to appear in an English dress on this side of the Atlantic, a suitable occasion for noticing it will then occur.

The only English dictionary in which this principle is distinctly recognised and carried out is Richardson's-a work in two volumes quarto, very closely printed. For the fulness of its chronological quotations, and the exactness of its definitions, and I may add, for the absence of mere rubbish under the name of definitions, Richardson's Dictionary is unparalleled. It appeared originally as a part of the Encyclopædia Metropolitana, but has since been frequently reprinted both in England and America.

CHRISTOPHER NORTH.

BY HENRY T. TUCKERMAN.

(With a portrait in front.)

testimony, independent of that his writings afford, of that extent and solidity of attainment we have designated as a requisite basis for a permanently successful magazinist; while the more facile graces that render the weapons in the armoury of learning and reflection easy to wield, and yet efficient in scope and aim, we not only trace in the fruits, but recognise in the very nature of Christopher North. The central principle of his genius, the secret charm whereby he filled the throne of magazine literature, is zest. This quality he imparted to the effusions of his pen by virtue of his own intense relish of nature and letters. He is a born sportsman, with the instinct for game in his very blood; accordingly he loved the freedom and excitement derivable from earnest pursuit, from contact with the influences of nature, and from the exhilaration of success. The characteristics of the sportsman he ex

In the brilliant galaxy of names memorably associated with magazine literature, perhaps no single one represents more completely the peculiar combination of talent requisite for its felicitous exercise than Christopher North. In its palmy days, Blackwood's Magazine realized an ideal in its kind rarely quite equalled, and never surpassed by subsequent or eotemporary rivals; and this it accomplished in spite of the opposing influence of party views, and the violation of many chivalric principles and social amenities. This triumph was owing chiefly to the fertile resources and varied aptitude of Wilson, whose mind, temperament, and disposition singularly fitted him to exemplify the capabilities of a periodical writer. It is usual to consider the aim and the qualities of such a vocation superficial, though brilliant. Such an estimate may apply to certain special phases of magazine literature, but not to the art considered as a whole, and embracing all the fea-hibits not less in writing than in hunting. He tures involved in the term. For this there is is often as boisterous, jovial, and spirited over needed, in the first place, a good basis of solid a new poem or an old reminiscence, as in a acquirements-a latent mine of good sense-a shooting-jacket on a moor in the bracing winds well-balanced philosophical mind—a large fund of autumn; in the former case, too, he follows of literary knowledge, accurate and profound a scent with a keen pertinacity, and a reckless yet available; a just insight, and a compre-step, his eye steadily fixed on the game, somehensive view-not less than wit, fancy, and times to glorify, and at others to contemn it. all the light artillery of popular writing. Instead of the contemplative air of the student, There must be also genuine enthusiasm to he exhibits the qui vive, bustling ways of a man give vitality to lucubrations that are des- of the world, halloos after a poet not less than tined to find their way into general circula- after a stag, and, what is most noticeable, gives tion; a sense of the beautiful to lend a charm his readers a distinct notion of his flavour, as to style; and, above all, an excellent address, well as of his anatomy. Hence the criticisms which alone imparts the ease and attractive- of Christopher North have been justly, and ness which make literature social in its tonewere once almost uniquely termed eloquent. a quality essential to the species we are con- Their rhetoric is not sustained as in those of sidering. These requisites belong, in large Macaulay, they have not the refined acuteness measure and in an extraordinary degree, to of Hazlitt, nor are they so profusely sprinkled Christopher North. His nom de plume is far with wit as those of Sidney Smith; but they more of a reality to his familiar readers than have the more widely appreciated quality of the actual person of many less vigorous and zest, and infect the reader, if he has a spark genial companions. In this very ability to of enthusiasm, or the shadow of an intellectual actualize himself in writing, not only as a man appetite, with the enjoyment of the critic. So entertaining certain opinions, but as a boon- far is this sense of personal relish carried, that companion, tasteful caterer, and jovial host at his critique in point of fact, is more like the the feast of letters, we have the best evidence animated discussion of an author viva voce, of his natural fitness for the office he assumed. than a calm analysis of him with the pen. The professorship of Moral Philosophy which Christopher North plunges into his works as he has satisfactorily filled to successive classes he would into a forest, makes the air ring with for so long a period, in Edinburgh, is sufficient | the echoes of his laudation or censure, seems

to roll on the flowery turf of poesy, like an enfranchised steed in a meadow, audibly inhales, as it were, the mountain breath of song, and moves with the elastic tread of a lover on his way to a tryst, along the romantic paths which imagination has hung over the barren scenes of the world. His sentient, as well as mental being, enters into the experience he describes, although it is but the reading of a poem. A favourite author warms his blood and quickens his brain like old wine; he grasps a work of genius with the cordial hand of an ardent friend, and, instead of being content to roam the shore, and gaze quietly on the tides of intellectual life, casts himself into them, and loves to feel the swell, and wrestle with the sportive billows. This tendency to identify consciousness with the literary enjoyment of the hour, this heart as well as hand, and sensitive as well as reflective alliance with genius, is the cause of all that is reliable and peculiar in Christopher North's expositions; it is also the cause of his erroneous and extravagant views. In the lecture-room, and even in the professed review, these would be inexcusable; but, as we allow a certain latitude of expression, and a somewhat hyperbolical sympathy on festive occasions; so the social character of magazine literature-the experimental and unconventional ground it is thought to occupy, not only permit, but encourage a freedom which has given birth to most desirable fruits. The formalist and the pedant have no place there. There is no ceremonious dignity; and the quips and whims, the hilarity and jokes, the wildest fancies and most sentimental vagaries, may there find legitimate expression. Accordingly, Christopher North set the example of a naturalness, independence, and vivacity which seized upon the common sympathies, and enlisted them in literature.

term.

But he is not only a natural sportsman in the genial, but also in the destructive sense of the He has a cruel as well as a benign mood. In the excitement of a hot pursuit he sometimes forgets what is due to calm reason, to generous feeling, and to truth, witness his sneer at our own country. Indeed, to judge him aright, even as a man, we must regard the author in two entirely distinct aspects, that of a partisan, and that of an artist. In the former character he is open to as much reproof as any writer of the age; the rancour of political animosity and the blindness of literary prejudice have never been exhibited in stronger or more ungrateful contrast than in his writings; the devil and the angel seem to wrestle visibly in his pages. We stand with him beside the Elder's deathbed to listen, with the sorrowful family, for the more equal breathing of the child yet lingering between life and death, and in our

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hearts is a "whole lake of tears;" we read his invectives against a political foe, and recoil at the possibility of having any other than antagonistic emotions roused at his call. We accompany him through the awful scenes of the City of the Plague," with a feeling of sublime brotherhood, which is, at once and most rudely, dispelled by the gross injustice with which he treats the person or subject unallied to his creed and sympathies. Listen to him in the "Isle of Palms," and when chaunting the obsolete and inhuman praises of Toryism; and how difficult to realize the identity of the author; nor can we easily believe that the noble heart that poured forth such an eloquent tribute to the Wild Deer and expanded with such thorough fellowship in communion with the Ettrick Shepherd, can, all at once, contract itself into such concentrated and bitter energy at the invocation of the demon of party. Again we find the phenomenon in a measure explained by organization. Wilson has doubtless a large organ of destructiveness. He relishes, like all hunters, the seizure of his game. He carries into warfare the intensity of feeling exercised so benignly when turned in the channel of generous appreciation. In a word, he hates as well as loves, scorns as well as admires, torments as well as fondles, in a precipitate and exaggerated way. He is at extremes both in the humour of abuse and in the enjoyment of beauty.

It is needless to point out the versatility and readiness of Christopher North. The mere fact of his eminent success in magazine writing is the best proof of their exercise. The periodical demand and the requisite variety of matter and style in this branch of literature has caused it to be pursued according to a division of labour; but, in each of its forms, Wilson has been an adept, writing with the same facility poetry, criticism, fiction, and partisan articles, and in each manifesting equal knowledge, vivacity, and ardour, though unfortunately not always the same good temper. His style is more affluent than delicate, though in the refinements of tone he has few superiors. One of his chief talents is that of description; and his power in this consists in giving us the spirit rather than the details of a scene. One might readily infer from his style that the rod and gun were as familiar to his grasp as the pen; that he has been accustomed to breathe the mountain air and brush the dew from the grass. It is not the communion of the philosophic Wordsworth or the ideal Shelley with nature, that we perceive in Wilson, but that more common intercourse based upon the natural affinity between the elements and the human constitution. The prominent charm of his genius is not a classic or quaint vein, like

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