So then, according to Lord Brougham, we are guilty of blasphemy whenever we pray God" to give our King the victory over all his enemies," or "to confound," in time of war and tumults," the devices" of our national foes; whenever we join in the thanksgiving contained in our liturgy, for the happy deliverance of King James and the three estates of England from the most traitorous and bloody intended massacre by gunpowder; or in that to Almighty God for having put an end to the great Rebellion. And, according to his Lordship's principles, David was a blasphemer, and the Psalms are full of blasphemy. The Church of England needs not my defence against so groundless a charge. But might it not have been expected, that the judicial mind of one who once filled the high office of Lord Chancellor, would have seen a closer analogy betwixt the head of the theoretical legislation of Plato and the law of his own country, which punishes those that openly blaspheme the national religion, and makes Christianity a part and parcel of itself? In his notes, Lord Brougham is copious in quotations from Greek authors. But I must beg leave to warn his readers against relying with too much confidence upon his fidelity, either as a quoter or as a translator. For example, in one of his notes, he cites, from the Phædo, these words, y Tov nμwv n ψυχὴ πρὶν ἐν τῳδε τῳ ἀνθρωπίνω ειδει γενέσθαι· ὥστε καὶ ταύτη ἀθάνατόν τι ἔοικεν ἡ ψυχὴ εἶναι: which he thus renders-" Our soul existed -somewhere before it was produced in the human form (or body), so it seems to be immortal also." It is plain, then, that he has not known how to translate raúry. But he has garbled the passage. It stands thus—τοῦτο δὲ ἀδύνατον, ἐἰ μὴ ἦν που ἡμων ἡ ψυχὴ κ. T.A. The argument is, that the knowledge which the soul of any man acquires in this life, is but reminiscence; but this would be impossible, unless our soul somewhere existed before it showed itself in this our human form: so that, in this way, it appears likely that the soul is something not subject to death." In the same note, the words, aλλà γὰρ ἂν φαίην ἑκάστην τῶν ψυχῶν πολλὰ σώματα κατατρίβειν, ἄλλως τε κἂν πολλὰ ern Bi, are rendered, "but I should rather say, that each of our souls wears out many bodies, though these should live many years." Now, aλws te kai, as every schoolboy knows, never means "though," but is always used synonymously with our "especially." Lord Brougham has evidently taken ouμara, instead of yux, for the nominative to the verb, and has quite misunderstood the sense of the passage. Cebes, who is here the speaker, and who is showing the invalidity of Socrates' proof of the soul's immortality, only means to assert, that, on account of the process of waste and supply, which is constantly going on in the human frame, the body which we have at the end of any year, is different from that which we had at the beginning; so that "each of our souls may well be said to wear out many bodies, especially if it happen to live many years." His lordship has discarded accents in his quotations from the Greek, a symptom, I think, of meagre scholarship; and his printer has very often omitted the aspirate, which, I hardly need say, is very offensive to a classical eye. I could point out other inaccuracies in his Discourse, if I did not fear that you will think this communication already too long. Yours, &c. PAROCHUS. RICHARDSON'S NEW ENGLISH Mr. URBAN, Tulse Hill, Nov. prefixed to the first part of the revised edition of "The New English Dictionary," I felt that I had quoted from the Roman Dramatist a sentiment which has practically been the motto of my life: Virtute ambire oportet, non fautoribus. My mind, I confess, is not well formed for the solicitation of kindness, but it is quite alive to feel, and ever ready to acknowledge it. The warmth with which, in the critical department of your Magazine, and of various other periodical productions, my book was welcomed on its appearance in its new dress, compels me to bear in mind the maxim of Rochefoucault, that-flattery is a sort of bad money, to which our vanity gives currency. My own pride, and a due sense of justice to my very favourable judges, forbid me for a moment to doubt that they have returned a sterling coin for a sterling commodity. With this conviction even, I have still to thank them, as I most sincerely and heartily do, for the promptness and friendliness of their verdicts in my behalf. They were indeed apprised that I was in some measure accustomed to the voice of approbation; and they will not be offended if I do not listen to it now as an unexpected novelty. Seventeen years ago, when my Dictionary had barely entered on its course in the Encyclopædia Metropolitana, the British Critic, (at that time, I believe, as at this, under the management of most respectable members of the Established Church,) prophetically announced, "that, if the compiler persevere, and finish as he has begun, we have no doubt the English Dictionary will be called for in a separate form." Within a very short period after this, the Monthly Review, conducted by gentlemen of different tenets from those of the British Critic, expressed their regret," that it had not been kept distinct" from the miscellaneous subjects of the Cyclopædia. After a lapse of about eight years, "The Quarterly," then recently, as I understood, consigned to the care of its present Editor, revived the strain; -and boldly proclaimed my Dictionary to be one," such as, perhaps, no other language could ever boast."* The eulogium is high; and it may be expected that I should disclaim, with assumed, if not with real, diffidence, all right and title to praise so apparently exaggerated. I shall sport in no such mockery. The words of the Critic are literally true, and would be so, even if his professional, oscillating * The notice of the Quarterly was incidental: a separate article was promised, but never given. perhaps were expunged from its place: they are true, because in no other language has such a Dictionary been attempted; in no other language is there one in which the design is-first to establish the meaning of words,and thence to deduce the otherwise inexplicable variety of applications;-in which the examples in illustration commence with authors of remotest antiquity, and are continued, in descending series, to those of the present era. At an interval of some four years, "The Westminster" refers to my " valuable communications" (to the Encyclopædia,) and proceeds, in a very clever essay, to unfold a scheme, in accordance with which a Dictionary ought to be constructed. The plan which is then elaborately sketched, and the plan which I for upwards of thirteen years had been pursuing, bear a resemblance so striking, not only in the more broad and prominent features, but in some minute specialties of conformation, that I cannot but congratulate myself upon the extended and silent influence of my labours. In the spring of the last year, a reviewer in the Quarterly, out upon a foray through Greek Lexicons, alights upon my book;* and he urges, as an objection against the chronological arrangement of the quotations, that it enforced a necessity of not infrequently producing an instance of a metaphorical usage before the literal meaning was exemplified. I had foreseen this objection, or rather the inconvenience itself; and I remarked, in the Prospectus, that "the mode of explanation would render this a matter of slender importance, when compared with the advantages that will be secured by an uniform adherence to chronology." In the last number of the Quarterly, the writer is again out upon a similar predatory excursion through English Lexicons; and again the New Dictionary attracts him no faultless monster, perfect in plan and execution, not I suspect this to be the same writer, who in a former number had cited, without comment, my etymology of How; it will perhaps occur to his mind, if he will place the last letter first, that I may here. after attempt to account from the same source for a whole family of words, hitherto, I believe, lying in utter darkness. withstanding his inclination to judge favourably, and his hopes of public encouragement to my honourable zeal, and, I presume, to my (by him) allowed judgment in selecting words, and industry in collecting authorities. He repeats his hostility to my chronological arrangement; and he proposes a remedy against the manifest perplexity that would result from his own scheme, of a succession of names, modern, middle aged, old, and very old ;-Pope, Wicliff, Spenser, Cowper, Chaucer, Burke-all heads and points upon the same page: and this remedy is a chronological list for the manual use of the uninitiated reader. The Reviewer condescendingly admits that Tooke may have done some service to the cause of English philology. I may safely leave the "Diversions of Purley" within the security of its own strength. It is an easy task, none more so than, to carp at particular etymologies: those of H. Tooke are, with their rivals, registered in my pages, it would have been an act of folly, as well as of injustice, to exclude them I leave them, however, to their fate. But I must say a word or two on the more general principles of that work itself. These I confidently assert the Reviewer does not understand,he renews the ridiculous charge of Professor Stewart * against the absurdity of Tooke's favourite position, "That words ought always to be used in their primitive signification." This favourite position is no where, I affirm, to be found in the EIIEA IITEPOENTA. Tooke's doctrine is simply this-That no word ought to be used in any application, not fairly deducible from the primitive signification, or intrinsic meaning. THIS it is—the Author of the Diversions of Purley asserts; this he proves; and on this 1 proceed, as the only rational and philosophical principle upon which INTERPRETATION can be founded. It is the rock on which I stand. Again: Tooke, in his second volume, traces to their source upwards of one thousand words, which are commonly denominated abstract terms. He says distinctly that he does not mean to quarrel about a title, though he See "Illustrations of English Philology," p. 259; by the Author of The New Dictionary. would rather employ subaudition than abstraction: his effort, however, is to account for such words-how and whence we obtained them. The Reviewer says, he was anxious to get rid of them :-get rid of the bulk of our Vocabulary! and stranger still, that he tried to prove that no such words do really exist. It was that imagined operation of the mind, called abstraction-it was the doctrine of abstract ideas-that he endeavoured to discard and, until it is discarded, all progress in metaphysics is at an end. Conscious that in the tilt he has run, he may have aggrieved some who may be desirous to seize an opportunity of revenge, the Reviewer produces, from his own etymological cabinet, a few specimens of his skill as an artist. Whether right or wrong, he signifi cantly observes, they do not appear to be generally known. For my own part, I feel no proneness to avail my. self of what he seems to proffer as golden means of retributive justice; I do not deny that they are so; but I content myself with requesting those who may take sufficient interest in the matter to compare these same hitherto unseen specimens with the pages of my Dictionary.t Upon the further prolusions of the Reviewer, I restrict myself to these short remarks: that he confounds the circumscribed purposes of a Dictionary of a particular tongue with the pursuits of philology in its wide range through all the languages of the earth; that in the New Dictionary, archaic or provincial terms are admitted only to throw light upon the origin of words in common use; that many words from writers of the middle ages, are introduced as instances of failure. May they act as warnings against the licentious innovations of the present day! It might be well for the Reviewer himself to read again his own curiously selected word, AGOG!! "Nimia innovandi affectatio (hoc gine multos irritaverit peregrinas (et insosaltem supremo seculo) inordinata prurilitas) voces præter necessitate conquirendi, qui nihil vel eleganter vel emphatice dici posse existimant, quod non insolitum quiddam, aut peregrinum sonum sapiat."Wallis, Gram. Angl. Pref. p. xxi. (An. 1653.) Men who, like myself, are no suitors for favour, are the more tenacious of their right to fair play. Yet am I not inclined to indulge towards the writer of this last crude and hasty notice of my book, too sensitive a disposition to querulousness or reproach. Clear it is, that he appears to be one who has watched my progress in the far-famed Encyclopædia, and having therefore a fuller knowledge of my merits and demerits than he could derive from the small portion of the reprint to which his observations are professedly confined, he would, I think, have performed more ingenuously his official duty, as a superintendent of the literature of the day, if he had either said nothing, or said more. The little that he has said may mislead: it cannot lead aright. The New Dictionary of the English Language is the product of almost unceasing labour through a large portion of my life. The encouragement I had early received had not been confined to the public press. Two individuals, eminent for their learning and abilities, who have since been raised to the Episcopal bench, the one in this, and the other in the sister island,-and who had allowed their names to be placed with mine, as contributors to the Encyclopædia, thought, and, as they thought, spoke well of my work. Others there were whose judgments were equally valuable, though their worldly success has not been so conspicuous. I was favoured also in my seclusion here by a visit from one of the oi kaλoi, who has since suddenly closed his mortal career, and whose attention had been called to the Dictionary by the reverend prelate to whom I have first alluded. I cannot but feel some emotions of pride, when I remember that in a work of such magnitude as the Encyclopædia, in the composition of which some of the most able and learned characters of the day have borne their * One name I must mention, that of Rev. Edward Smedley, who, for thirteen years, in the character of editor of the Encyclopædia, has accompanied me, page by page. He frequently cheered me in my progress. I value his good opinion more than that of any other man, because, competent to judge as the best, he knows the book-better. parts, my own individual portion has ever commanded its full meed of esteem. I believe, that even in Germany this distinction has been bestowed; and I have reason to be assured, that in America also the anticipations to which I ventured to give utterance in my Prospectus, have not proved altogether ill-founded. With these testimonies of the success with which I was considered to have conducted my exertions, I should have had reason to be ashamed, if, when I presented the republication of my book, I had indulged in any affectations of diffidence or doubt. I presented it with the confidence of a man who knew that he had spared no pains in long service to establish a title to have his name enrolled among those who have advanced the literature of their country; and who knew that that claim had been by many, who were well qualified to decide, very explicitly acknowledged. One word now to my readers in general. I beg of them to reflect that in a Dictionary of English words, they must not expect an alphabetical arrangement of all sorts of knowledge,they must learn elsewhere their astronomy and their architecture, their che. mistry and navigation. I beg of them, further, to bestow their best thoughts upon the interpretative or explanatory portion of the work. Of the advantages that, in procession of time, will result from their so doing, my hopes are indeed very sanguine. I think that when my book becomes better known, when the minds of youthful students become practised in the mode of explanation which I have carefully pursued, a most serious and important change will necessarily follow in the accustomed modes of thinking, and consequently of reasoning. I have one request more-that if any seeming discrepancies or incongruities should arise, my readers will suppose it possible that I may be able to reconcile them; if any flaws or defects-that I may be able to repair them; and generally, that upon various points they will, not in candour merely, but in justice, hold their judgments in suspense until I lay before them a finished delineation of my plan. Yours, &c. CHAS. RICHARDSON. IN no archæological works that I have met with have I been able to find any thing satisfactory respecting the ancient Ryknield Street, one of the British or Roman highways which intersected the interior parts of the island. Camden does not mention it at all, and whether any more modern topographer has attempted to trace its course I am uninformed; yet I perceive it is laid down in a recent map of ancient Britain, sanctioned by the collective wisdom of "the Society for diffusing useful Knowledge," and there it is described as occupying the course of a way hitherto known by a different, though a very similar name—the Icknield Street; which name, in the map I refer to, is transferred to a way leading from Venta Icenorum (Norwich) in a south-west direction towards Sorbiodunum (Old Sarum). This transposition confounds all previous historical evidence (at least that I have met with) and prompts my present attempt to diffuse more correct knowledge, through your widely circulated pages, respecting the ancient Ryknield Street. In Nichols's History of Leicestershire (Introduction,p. cxlvii.) the course of an ancient way, designated "Via Devana," (a name which has not, as I am aware, the sanction of antiquity) is very particularly traced through several of the midland counties; and which appears to have been the connecting road between the two distant Roman cities of Deva (Chester), and Camolodunum (Colchester). The writer of that article, the Rev. T. Leman, states it to have been first noticed by the late Dr. Mason, and that he, Mr. Leman, with the Bishop of Cork, travelled the greater part of it, in 1798 and 1799. He says it was traced through the principal part of Staffordshire with little difficulty, and particularly from Draycott straight to Lane Delph, and then by Wolstanton Church to the station at Chesterton (in the neighbourhood of which I write), and which is now generally considered to be the Mediolanum, at which Antonine's tenth Iter terminates. Now, upon referring to one of the Harleian manuscripts in the British Museum (No. 2060), being a copy of the foundation charter of the Abbey of Hulton, dated in 1223, I find the Rykeneld Street mentioned as a boundary of lands in Normancote bestowed upon that Abbey, and it happens that the road from Draycott to Lane Delph, above spoken of by Mr. Leman, still forms the boundary of Normancote Grange for the distance of at least a mile; so that Ryknield Street is most clearly identified, by a document more than six hundred years old, with the Chester and Colchester way denominated Via Devana by modern geographers. It will be proper then to restore to this way its original appellation, and no longer to retain that which has been given to it in ignorance of its proper ancient name. As to the etymology of the word Ryknield, I confess myself wholly at fault, and should feel gratified if any of your antiquarian friends could assist me in elucidating it. The two words, Ikenield and Rykenield, must be cognate terms, and I think the former has never been satisfactorily made out. Sir W. Betham claims for the Watling Street a Gaelic origin; probably the two others may have come to us from the same source; at all events, I see no reason to believe that Ikenield Street has any connexion with the Iceni; nor am I aware that there was any British tribe whose patronymic is preserved in the Ryknield Street. Yours, &c. J. W. NEW SCIENTIFIC EXPEDITIONS. There are two separate expeditions on the eve of being proceeded with, one under Capt. Beechey, in the Sulphur, accompanied by the Starling, Lieut. Kellett (one of the associates of Capt. Owen), to extend his geographical researches in the Pacific and the coasts of North and South America. The other under Capt. Vidal (also one of Owen's gallant associates, and highly esteemed for ability in surveying the Irish coast), with the Etna and Raven, to survey and map the West coast of Africa, between Sierra Leone and Fernando Po.-The Bonite departs this month from Toulon for Brazil, the Sandwich Islands, and the Indian and Chinese seas. The French Academy of Sciences has named a committee for drawing up the proper instructions, which is composed of M. Arago for natural philosophy in general, M. de Blainville for zoology, M. Cordier for mineralogy, M. de Mirbel for botany, and M. de Freycinet for naviga tion. * The Gael and Cymbri, p. 364. |