Chapter 4

[4] This is the primary reason why in Middle and Modern English, unlike what is found in German and Dutch, the terms of culture, art, science, and philosophy, are of French or, through French, of Latin origin. The corresponding Old English terms were forgotten during the age of illiteracy, and when, generations later, the speaker of English came again to deal with such subjects, he had to do like Layamon, when he knew no longer _tungol-croeft_, and could refer to it only as 'the craft ihote _astronomie_ in other kunnes speche.'

[5] Also _Medulla Grammaticae_, or usually _Grammatice_.

[6] At the end is an alphabetical list of adjectives; extending from lf. 79a, col. 2, to 83a, foot.

[7] It must however be mentioned that the second dictionary of English and another modern tongue was appropriately 'A Dictionary in Englyshe and Welshe, moche necessary to all suche Welshemen as wil spedlye learne the englyshe tongue, thought vnto the kynges maiestie very mete to be sette forth to the vse of his graces subiectes in Wales, ... by Wyllyam Salesbury.' The colophon is 'Imprynted at London in Foster Lane, by me John Waley. 1547.'

[8] In the Dedication he says, 'Which worke, long ago for the most part, was gathered by me, but lately augmented by my sonne Thomas, who now is Schoolemaister in London.'

[9] 'To the right honourable, worshipfull, vertuous, & godlie Ladies, the Lady Hastings, the Lady Dudley, the Lady Mountague, the Ladie Wingfield, and the Lady Leigh, his Christian friends, R.C. wisheth great prosperitie in this life, with increase of grace, and peace from GOD our Father, through Iesus Christ our Lord and onely Sauiour.' (A 2.)

[10] His explanations of such words were curt enough: '_Cat_, a Creature well known'; '_Horse_, a Beast well known'; '_Man_, a Creature endued with Reason.'

[11] 'An interleaved copy of Bailey's dictionary in folio he made the repository of the several articles.' _Works of J._, 1787, I. 175.

[12] Pg. _coco_, a grinning mask, applied to the coco-nut because of the three holes and central protuberance at its apex, suggesting two eyes, a mouth, and nose.

[13] The following are examples of his own practice: _The Rambler_ (1751), No. 153, par. 3, 'I was in my eighteenth year dispatched to the university.' Ibid., No. 161, par. 4, 'I ... soon dispatched a bargain on the usual terms.' _Letter to Mrs. Thrale_, May 6, 1776, 'We dispatched our journey very peaceably.'

[14] Among such must be reckoned the treatment of words in the explanation of which Johnson showed political or personal animus or whimsical humour, as in the well-known cases of _whig_, _tory_, _excise_, _pension_, _pensioner_, _oats_, _Grub-street_, _lexicographer_ (see Boswell's _Johnson_, ed. Birkbeck Hill, i. 294); although it must be admitted that these have come to be among the famous spots of the Dictionary, and have given gentle amusement to thousands, to whom it has been a delight to see 'human nature' too strong for lexicographic decorum.

[15] In some cases, long Lists of the Authors, from whose works 'the illustrative quotations have been selected,' are given, without the statement that many of those quotations have not actually been selected from the authors and works named, but have merely been annexed from Johnson or one of his supplementers.

[16] The famous _Deutsches Wörterbuch_ of Jacob and Wilhelm Grimm, after many years of preparation, began to be printed in 1852; Jacob Grimm himself died in 1863, in the middle of the letter F; the work is expected to reach the end of S by the close of the century. The great _Woordenboek der Nederlandsche Taal_ was commenced in 1852; its first volume, _A--Ajuin_, was published in 1882, and it is not yet quite half-finished. Of the new edition of the _Vocabolario della Crusca_, which is to a certain extent on historical principles, Vol. I, containing A, was published in 1863, and Vol. VIII, completing I, in 1899; at least twenty-five more years will be required to reach Z. None of these works embraces so long a period of the language, or is so strictly historical in method, as the New English Dictionary. Rather are they, like Littré's great _Dictionnaire de la Langue Française_, Dictionaries of the modern language, with the current words more or less historically treated.