THE MERMAN. (From the German of Kerner.) BY THE REV. CHARLES T. BROOKS. BENEATH the young May moon's tender glance, They danced and they danced by the moonbeams pale, A youthful stranger, richly arrayed, Addressed him soon to the fairest maid: His hand for a dance he offers her there, He places a sea-green wreath in her hair. He waltzes with her into the brine: "Oh father! and oh, thou mother of mine!" He leads her down to a crystal hall: SONNET. BY MRS. JULIA C. R. DORR. REST warrior! rest thee, for thy task is done! Past the fierce conflict, and the bitter strife, The dread affray is o'er, the victory won! Give thy young page thy trusty sword and shield; Haste from the turmoil of the battle-field, MODERN LEXICOGRAPHY. BY JOHN 8. HART. 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 learning was comparatively useless, for want of a 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. is settledness, firmness, fixedness, stability. Robert of Brunne also, a little earlier than Wickliffe, uses setness (another form for sadness) in the sense of settlement, settled agreement. A few quotations from Wickliffe's translation of the New Testament, will show that the idea here suggested is no conceit. "The stream beat vehemently upon that house, and could not shake it, for it was founded upon a rock." Luke vi. 48. "For it was founded upon a sad stone." Wickliffe. "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. "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." Wick liffe. "Joying and beholding your order, and the A necessary inference from this principle is, steadfastness of your faith in Christ." Colossians that the only sure way to ascertain the mean-ii. 5. ing 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;" Let us take another instance. The word he also renders firmitas, firmamentum, immobili- "dull" may be traced to a literal primary tas, "sadness," as the "sadness of your belief," meaning, that of bluntness or thickness in the where the common translation has "the stead-edge of any sharp instrument, such as a knife. fastness of your belief." These facts point An instrument thus "dull" is inactive and 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,) 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. 7. Gross, cloggy, vile. 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.” 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 The common word "rack," meaning "torsingle glance. By the old method of stringing ture," is from the Anglo-Saxon "wræcan," to together a confused and irregular mass of epi- wreak (Latin, exercere, agitare, affligere, inthets, without any logical dependence, or any fligere, punire). The literal meaning, and its apparent connexion, except that which arises various metaphorical applications are so obfrom numbering the so-called different mean-vious, that no illustrations are required. But ings, 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." 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 I repeat, then, the only rational basis for a some meaning akin to the former. This other dictionary, is to trace each word to one pri- "rack" is the Anglo-Saxon "reác," or "réc,” mary, literal meaning, and to do this not by smoke, steam, from the verb "recan" or "reófanciful conjectures, but by rigid historical can," to smoke, reek, cast forth vapours. Hence research. Johnson's definitions have acquired the verb to reek, or to rack (two modes of great celebrity. But it is in spite of his method, spelling), means to send forth vapour or smoke, not by virtue of it. It is in consequence of to move like vapour or smoke. The noun the masculine grasp of his intellect, and his "rack" is that which is "racked" or "reekown 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 ; 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. "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. "Full many a glorious morning have I seen Flatter the mountain tops with sovereign eye, (As I foretold you), are all spirits, and 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. MODERN LEXICOGRAPHY. "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, "The hooded Erne "Then sadly the housewife points her hand 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 339 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 ard America. CHRISTOPHER NORTH. BY HENRY T. TUCKERMAN. (With a portrait in front.) 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 cotemporary 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 features involved in the term. For this there is needed, in the first place, a good basis of solid acquirements-a latent mine of good sense-a well-balanced philosophical mind-a large fund of literary knowledge, accurate and profound yet available; a just insight, and a comprehensive view-not less than wit, fancy, and all the light artillery of popular writing. There must be also genuine enthusiasm to give vitality to lucubrations that are destined to find their way into general circulation; a sense of the beautiful to lend a charm to style; and, above all, an excellent address, which alone imparts the ease and attractiveness which make literature social in its tonea quality essential to the species we are considering. These requisites belong, in large measure and in an extraordinary degree, to Christopher North. His nom de plume is far more of a reality to his familiar readers than the actual person of many less vigorous and genial companions. In this very ability to actualize himself in writing, not only as a man entertaining certain opinions, but as a booncompanion, tasteful caterer, and jovial host at the feast of letters, we have the best evidence of his natural fitness for the office he assumed. The professorship of Moral Philosophy which he has satisfactorily filled to successive classes for so long a period, in Edinburgh, is sufficient 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 exhibits not less in writing than in hunting. He is often as boisterous, jovial, and spirited over a new poem or an old reminiscence, as in a shooting-jacket on a moor in the bracing winds of autumn; in the former case, too, he follows a scent with a keen pertinacity, and a reckless step, his eye steadily fixed on the game, sometimes to glorify, and at others to contemn it. Instead of the contemplative air of the student, he exhibits the qui vive, bustling ways of a man of the world, halloos after a poet not less than after a stag, and, what is most noticeable, gives his readers a distinct notion of his flavour, as well as of his anatomy. Hence the criticisms of Christopher North have been justly, and were once almost uniquely termed eloquent. Their rhetoric is not sustained as in those of Macaulay, they have not the refined acuteness of Hazlitt, nor are they so profusely sprinkled with wit as those of Sidney Smith; but they have the more widely appreciated quality of zest, and infect the reader, if he has a spark of enthusiasm, or the shadow of an intellectual appetite, with the enjoyment of the critic. far is this sense of personal relish carried, that his critique in point of fact, is more like the animated discussion of an author riva voce, than a calm analysis of him with the pen. Christopher North plunges into his works as he would into a forest, makes the air ring with the echoes of his laudation or censure, seems So |