Part 5

The Press has also published very numerous reproductions of works of art of all kinds, partly by way of illustrated catalogues of special collections or _genres_ (such as the three folio volumes of Oxford Drawings by the old masters, the numerous coin catalogues, and the cheap collection of British Historical Portraits in half-tone); partly in the form of profusely illustrated monographs, which moreover are all scientific works by experts and not mere collections of pretty pictures with illustrative letterpress.

These works are of great importance to students and collectors, and a select list is appended: Head’s _Historia Numorum_, Gardner’s _Ancient Coinage_, Beazley’s and other books on Greek Vases, Hill’s _Renaissance Medals_, Dalton’s _Byzantine Art_, Maunde Thompson’s _Palaeography_, Murray’s _History of Chess_, ffoulkes’s _Armour and Weapons_, Rivoira’s _Moslem Architecture_, Vincent Smith’s _Fine Art in India_, Sir Aurel Stein’s _Khotan_ and _Serindia_ and other special works on Eastern Art, the important series of monographs on English Church Art written or edited by the late Francis Bond, with his comprehensive _Introduction to English Church Architecture_ in two volumes, and many more too numerous to cite, particularly the great wealth of British Museum catalogues. A very welcome recent accession to the catalogue is supplied by the sumptuous monographs on Italian Masters produced by the Harvard and Princeton University Presses.

The use of illustration is, however, by no means confined to facsimiles and works on the arts. The modern productions of the Press have made an increasing use of illustration both as an embellishment and as a medium of information. School-books in particular are now lavishly illustrated with portraits, maps, diagrams, and other reproductions, often either of modern photographs or of old cuts and engravings carefully chosen, so that the actual men and things of former times may be faithfully mirrored.

The Press prints for the British Museum and other London collections, as well as for the Ashmolean Museum at Oxford, very large numbers of postcards in collotype, by means of which a knowledge of our national art treasures is being widely spread.

§ 5. _Official Publications_

The Press prints for the official purposes of the University the _University Gazette_ (recording the official Acts and Agenda of the University), the annual _Calendar_ (primarily a list of the members of the University), the _Statuta Universitatis_ and the _Examination Statutes_ (both published every year), and a number of smaller pamphlets &c. giving special information. The numerous and far-reaching changes, made necessary by the war and the fruits of the war, have hitherto precluded the republication of the useful and popular _Oxford University Handbook_, last published in 1915. Meanwhile, the pamphlet of General_ Information_ (on admission, residence, scholarships, and some examinations) will be found valuable by those, at home and abroad, who wish to form a general conception of the opportunities afforded to students and the requirements which they must fulfil.

There are many other official books, both utilitarian and antiquarian. Employers and others have often occasion to inquire what places a member of the University obtained in the class-lists. The information, not always available elsewhere, is given, from the beginning to 1900, in the _Historical Register of the University_, and for the years 1901-20, in the _Supplement_ to that work recently published. Benefactors and others interested in University Finance are directed to the _Abstract of the Accounts of the University and Colleges_ published annually. Other publications of local usefulness include the _Oxford University Pocket Diary_ for the academical year, and the terminal list of all _Resident Members of the University_ (with addresses, telephone numbers, &c.).

The University twice during the war printed its _Roll of Service_, and in 1920 published the third and definitive edition: it contains the names, fourteen thousand five hundred and sixty-one in number, of those members of the University who served in the Military and Naval forces of the Crown. The names of those who gave their lives, two thousand four hundred and seventy-four in number, are distinguished by heavy type.

_The Oxford University Almanack_ has been printed annually since 1674, and of the illustrations since 1716 the Press possesses the original plates. By far the greater number are still on sale. Many of the recent plates are of great interest and beauty; those for 1906-10, and that for 1918, are collotypes from drawings made for the Almanack by Mr. Muirhead Bone; most of the later issues are chromo-collotypes reproducing water-colour drawings, preserved at Oxford, by J. M. W. Turner and other artists of his time.

The historical books dealing with Oxford and published by the Press include Mr. Madan’s _Oxford Books_, ‘1468’-1650, a work much esteemed by bibliographers; Mr. Shadwell’s _Enactments in Parliament_ (concerning Oxford, Cambridge, Winchester, Eton, and Westminster); Mrs. Poole’s three volumes (one is out of print) of illustrated catalogues of Oxford Portraits (all these published for, or in co-operation with, the Oxford Historical Society); and, in a lighter vein, Mr. Lamborn’s popular _Story of Architecture in Oxford Stone_ and handy guides, written by experts, to the Bodleian, other Oxford Libraries, the Ashmolean Museum, the University Museum (of Natural Science), and the picturesque Degree Ceremony (by the Warden of Wadham). The Press offers also a _History of Oxford Rowing_, and the collected _Orationes_ of the late Public Orator, Dr. W. W. Merry, perhaps the only man of modern times who could make a Latin speech intelligible to an audience of undergraduates and ladies.

Lord Curzon’s work on _University Reform_ published in 1909 is still on sale.

§ 6. _The Oxford English Dictionary_

The work described on its title-page as _A New English Dictionary on Historical Principles,_ and long known familiarly as _N.E.D._ or _Murray’s Dictionary_, but now generally as the _Oxford Dictionary_, has a continuous history of more than half a century. It was in 1857 that Dean Trench (afterwards Archbishop Trench) laid the foundation of the work by calling the attention of the Philological Society to the inadequacy of all existing English Dictionaries. He pointed out that thousands of words which had become obsolete, but remained in the national literature, had either escaped the diligence of lexicographers or had been excluded by the limitations of their plan; and in especial that no dictionary gave any account of the _history_ of words and their senses; in none was it ascertained when a word was first used, when (if obsolete) it had last been used, and how its senses had been developed.

The members of the Philological Society threw themselves eagerly into the plan proposed for supplying these deficiencies, and an army of volunteers set about the systematic examination of the whole body of English literature. At length a dictionary was projected (in place of the supplement first suggested, which it was realized would be much larger than the works it was designed to supplement), and Mr. Herbert Coleridge was appointed editor. Fresh volunteers were enlisted, and the work made progress. But it could hardly have taken shape without the tireless industry and indomitable courage of the next editor, Dr. Furnivall, who saw, but did not shrink from, the immense preparatory labours yet to be faced. Furnivall realized that an English Dictionary could not be made until the roots of the language could be examined in the mass of our early literature, which was then hardly known; and to provide this essential he founded in 1864 the _Early English Text Society_—the long list of whose publications, still growing, may be read in the Clarendon Press Catalogue.

But even the enthusiasm of a Furnivall did not avail to prevent a growing sense of despondency, when the work seemed to lengthen out indefinitely with no promise of performance. No private publisher could be found to undertake a work so vast. It was decided to invite the co-operation of the Clarendon Press. The Philological Society and Dr. James Murray, who had thrown himself into the work with an energy equal to Furnivall’s own, and was by acclamation designated as editor, entered into negotiations with the Delegates of the Press, and an agreement was signed.

It is fortunate that the magnitude of human undertakings is seldom perceived by those who engage upon them. Coleridge had intimated that it would be time to begin the Dictionary when a hundred thousand quotations had been pigeon-holed. The efforts of Furnivall and Murray brought the total to three and a half million quotations, selected by thirteen hundred readers from the works of five thousand authors. The work of accumulation has gone on for forty years since, and to-day the Dictionary contains about one and three-quarter million _printed_ quotations, selected from a greatly larger number. Dr. Murray himself agreed with the Delegates for a work of between 6,000 and 7,000 pages. The total will exceed 15,000. He expected to complete the book in ten years with a small staff. To-day, thirty-five years after printing began, the work, to which Murray himself contributed more than 7,000 pages, is being carried on by three editors with twelve assistants; and the end is not yet.

It is impossible to value too highly the services of voluntary helpers from the beginning to the present day. The completeness and accuracy of the work, which is probably without a rival in any country or in any age, could not have been secured except by editors of the greatest learning and ability and by the training of a lifetime; but these qualities would not have availed if the work had not been founded upon inductive investigations of a range never before attempted. For the wealth of the materials made available our gratitude is due to readers not only in the United Kingdom but in all parts of the world, and notably in the United States of America, where the Dictionary is regarded with affectionate admiration as the common achievement of the English-speaking people.

Valuable, however, as the work of these voluntary helpers has been, an even larger debt of gratitude is due to the faithful labours of the editorial staff of assistants, some of whom can trace back their term of service to the earliest years of the undertaking. To their acumen, vigilance, and zeal have been and are due in large measure the completeness of the evidence and the correctness of detail in the presentation of words and their meanings.

Dr. Murray with his staff moved to Oxford in 1885, and there the work has been continuously carried on, partly in the _Scriptorium_ attached to Dr. Murray’s house, partly (and in recent years wholly) in the _Old Ashmolean Building_, next door to the old Sheldonian Press and within a stone’s throw of the Bodleian. Here, as a section of the alphabet comes to be treated, the material is sifted, extracts from it are put in order, fresh investigations, often laborious, are undertaken to settle etymologies and doubtful points in the history of a word; copy is prepared for the printer, and references are checked. The complete preparation of the material involves researches of the most varied nature, some of which lead the editors even beyond the confines of our own language to novel and important discoveries.

The scope of the Dictionary, in the form which it finally assumed, is thus stated in the preface to Volume I:—‘The aim of this dictionary is to furnish an adequate account of the meaning, origin, and history of English words now in general use, or known to have been in use at any time during the last seven hundred years. It endeavours (1) to show, with regard to each individual word, when, how, in what shape, and with what signification, it became English; what development of form and meaning it has since received; which of its uses have, in the course of time, become obsolete, and which still survive; what new uses have since arisen, by what processes, and when: (2) to illustrate these facts by a series of quotations ranging from the first known occurrence of the word to the latest, or down to the present day; the word being thus made to exhibit its own history and meaning: and (3) to treat the etymology of each word strictly on the basis of historical fact, and in accordance with the methods and results of modern philological science.’

As the history of many English words begins with the Anglo-Saxon period, and the ‘first known occurrence’ may be as early as the seventh century, the period actually covered by hundreds of the articles in the Dictionary is one of ten, eleven, or twelve centuries.

The extent to which the aim of the Dictionary has been accomplished is not yet so widely known as it ought to be. Many discussions as to the origin, history, and meaning of words are carried on in newspapers and periodicals which could be decided at once by a reference to the Dictionary. Inquirers spend much of their own and others’ time, and in the end write to one of the editors, in quest of information which has for years been available in the published volumes. Nor is it solely the student of language who can profit by the use of the Dictionary, although in this respect it is of unique value both for English and Continental philologists. Every scholar and scientist is likely to find in it some fresh light upon his own subject, for many special points in the history and terminology of the various sciences have for the first time been elucidated in its pages.

The reputation, however, of the Dictionary is now so widely spread that it would be superfluous to call witnesses to its unique qualities and its profound usefulness. In the legislature and in the law courts, as well as in the library and the market place, its ruling on the meanings and use of words is accepted as final. Nor is the range of the work limited in this respect to the usage of the United Kingdom; it embraces all forms of the language sanctioned as standard by literary use, wherever English is spoken and written.

For these and other reasons no proper comparison can be made with any other English dictionary; but the magnitude of the result may none the less be gauged by means of these. Taking one of the ten volumes as a basis of comparison, the seventh, comprising words beginning with O and P, has nearly 49,000 words (of which over 5,000 are obsolete and nearly 2,000 are naturalized aliens). No other English dictionary has more than 27,000 words beginning with O and P. When comparison is made of the number of illustrative quotations, the difference is overwhelming; Vol. VII has 175,000 quotations, and no other dictionary has much more than 20,000 for the same sections of the alphabet.

If it is thought that, great as the work is, it has taken an inordinate time to produce, comfort may be taken from the fate of comparable enterprises abroad. The great _Deutsches Wörterbuch_ started by the brothers Grimm in 1838 began to be printed as long ago as 1851, and thus had a start of over thirty years; but though it is only some two-thirds of the scale of the Oxford book, there still after sixty-seven years remains about a sixth to do. The Dutch _Woordenboek_ is less advanced, and the dictionary of the Swedish Academy has not passed the letter D.

The state of the work to-day is that of the ten volumes nine are published, and of the tenth (Ti-Z) substantial parts are complete, namely Ti-Ty, and V, X Y Z, and the first sections of U and W. The end, however, is not so near as might be thought; U is a large section, and W is in many respects the most difficult letter in the alphabet, consisting as it does almost entirely of words of Teutonic origin, and therefore of obscure etymology and complicated history. A lexicographer makes light work of _parallelepiped_ and _supralapsarian_; it is when he comes to words like _wealth_ and _work_, _war_ and _waste_, _wild_ and _wilful_, that his powers of discovery and of discrimination are seriously taxed.

Sir James Murray (he was knighted in 1908) died 26 July 1915. His ambition to see the completion of the work on his eightieth birthday in 1917 was not fulfilled, and even if he had lived to devote to it his amazing powers of application, could not have been fulfilled. He lived, however, to see the end of his life-work in sight, and more than that of any other man his name will be associated with the long and efficient working of the great engine of research. The volumes produced by him have characteristic excellences which cannot be exactly matched, though they may be rivalled by merits of another kind.

The work is now carried on by three editors, working independently on different sections of the alphabet. Dr. Henry Bradley, whose period of work on the Dictionary now rivals Murray’s in point of time, is by common consent the greatest of living English philologists. He has been an editor since 1888. Professor W. A. Craigie, who has been an editor since 1901, and Rawlinson and Bosworth Professor of Anglo-Saxon since 1916, brings to the work of the Dictionary a rare combination of qualifications. He is especially eminent as a Scandinavian scholar. Mr. C. T. Onions, appointed an editor in 1913, has been on the staff since 1895. He is also known to scholars as the author of the _Oxford Shakespeare Glossary_ and for his editorial part in _Shakespeare’s England_.

The London Goldsmiths’ Company contributed £5,000 towards the cost of the sixth volume of the Dictionary, the title-page of which records their generous support. Apart from this the whole of the editorial and manufacturing cost of the work has been borne by the Delegates of the Press, who have defrayed from their general revenues a heavy annual outlay for many years. This has necessarily risen since the war, and it is fortunate that so large a part of the work had been completed under conditions less onerous than now obtain.

The price of the Dictionary has been kept very low, the sections being published at the rate of 2_s._ 6_d._ for sixty-four pages or less than a halfpenny per page containing on an average over 300 lines of type and nearly 3,000 words. Few books have ever been sold at so low a rate. The prices of volumes and half volumes stoutly bound in leather have necessarily been advanced in recent years to meet the enhanced cost of manufacturing; but the price of the Dictionary is still no more than nominal, if regard is paid to the outlay precedent to the actual manufacture of the books. Sections in paper wrappers, issued after 1920, will be priced at the rate of 5_s._ for sixty-four pages; but it is not proposed to raise the price of the bulk of the work in this form.

The London _Times_ in 1897 described the Dictionary as ‘the greatest effort which any University, it may be any printing press, has taken in hand since the invention of printing.... It will be not the least of the glories of the University of Oxford to have completed this gigantic task’.

Lord Curzon in his _Letter to the University_ of 1909 wrote: ‘In the staff of the English Dictionary alone the Press contributes to the University what is probably the largest single engine of Research working anywhere at the present time.’

§ 7. _Dictionary of National Biography_

This, the largest of all national collections of biography, owes its existence to the enterprise and munificence of the late GEORGE SMITH, who founded it in 1882. The work was produced by the co-operation of a large number of scholars acting under the direction of the late Sir LESLIE STEPHEN, with whom was afterwards associated Mr. SIDNEY LEE; and the latter half of the work was produced under Sir SIDNEY LEE’s sole editorship.

It was produced in sixty-three quarterly volumes, 1885-1900, the arrangement being alphabetical; and the lives of those who died too late to be admitted in their alphabetical place were included by the issue of three supplementary volumes, which brought the work down to the death of Queen Victoria and just past the close of the nineteenth century. The sixty-six volumes were later reissued, with corrections, on thinner paper, three volumes being converted into one; and this edition in twenty-two volumes constitutes the main dictionary from the earliest times to the close of the Victorian era, in the form now on sale. It contains, in rather more than 30,000 pages, some 30,000 lives, each equipped with a select bibliography. The roll of contributors includes many famous names; conspicuous among the articles are those of Sir Leslie Stephen himself, which are models of form and substance, and those of the present Regius Professor of Modern History at Oxford, Dr. C. H. Firth, whose Life of Cromwell is an acknowledged classic.

Continuing the work of the founder, Mrs. George Smith undertook a Supplement covering the years 1901-1911, which was produced by Sir Sidney Lee in 1912-13. This, as the first of a series of twentieth-century volumes, inaugurated what may be regarded as a second and distinct work.

Further, in 1903 was published in one volume an _Index and Epitome_ to the Dictionary, giving within 1,500 pages 30,000 succinct biographies. The value of this compendium, to the very large non-professional public to whom the main work in twenty-two bulky volumes is not readily accessible, need not be emphasized. It has been thought proper, however, to lay stress upon its usefulness as an independent work of reference, which may fairly be expected to take its place, upon thousands of shelves, along with other compendious dictionaries and encyclopaedias; the Index and Epitome, therefore, along with the Index and Epitome to the Supplement of 1901-11, bound with it, is now issued under the short title of _Concise Dictionary of National Biography_.