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ble writer in the United States used it afterwards without a sneer, from which the wisdom and dignity of the author could not secure him. Progress and bottom as verbs, grade, and lengthy, have gained full admission into the English vocabulary. Illy, the use of which is not unexampled in England, and was formerly common in the United States, is now universally discarded by good writers.

New words have been introduced more sparingly by American than by English writers and public speakers. While we are able to vindicate ourselves against the charge of corrupting the language to any considerable extent in this particular, we must plead guilty to the charge of perverting the true sense of several words, and of departing, in some instances, from established English idioms. But in these respects we have not proved incorrigible, and the charge can no longer be sustained against our best writers and public speakers, to an alarming degree. More parliamentary corruptions of speech, of recent origin, can be traced to British statesmen than to those of our country; such, for instance, as reliable, industrial, feature-as applied to the several details of a bill. And, in general, the well educated men of England have multiplied words borrowed from foreign terms, or regularly formed from radical words in their own language, to a much greater extent than men of the same class in the United States.*

* Our readers may like to have a sample of the neologisms recently introduced into our language by writers of good authority, or in periodical works of high repute, in England. Opening Mr. Worcester's dictionary at random, and turning over but few pages, we have found the following words which are given with the authorities annexed. Not one of them is to be found in Todd's edition of Johnson.

Guardianize, Quarterly Review; gullible, W. Scott; gustatory, Edinburgh Review; gutturality. Seward; gyral, Ed. Review; hagiocracy, Eclectic Review; hagiology, Chas. Butler; half-hearted, Southey; halluci natory, Ed. Review; hang, [a steep declivity.] Loudon; harassment, Ec. Review; hardish. Scott; harlequinade, Ed. Review; heathendom, Ed. Review; heathery, Quar. Review; Hellenization, Athenæum; hemorrhagic, Monthly Review; heptarch, J. M. Good; heraldical, Gent. Magazine; her aldically, Quar_Review; herder, [herdsman,] Monthly Review; hereditability, Sir E. Brydges; hero-errant, Quar. Review; heroicalness, Scott; heroicness, Montague; hesitative, Smart; hierocracy, Southey; hierolatry, Coleridge; Hispanicism, Ed. Review; honorific, For Quar. Review; horizontality, Philosophical Journal; horrify, Eclectic Review; dietist, Quar. Review; dilative, Coleridge; diplomate, West. Review.

The list might be indefinitely extended; but we have given enough to account for the tender anxiety with which our critical brethren across the water watch over the purity of the English language.

Still, we are willing to acknowledge all the faults that are proved against us, and all that can be detected of which we are not aware. We would much rather correct than defend what is wrong. If we are in the habit of saying, we admire to do or have a thing, or go to a place; that we calculate to perform an act; that our neighbour conducts ill; if a clerk notifies persons to meet, instead of notifying a meeting to the persons; if the members of a school-committee, in a thinly peopled village, fix upon a spot for a school-house that will best convene the inhabitants; all we can say is, let us break off such habits of speaking, and use words in their true meaning. Faults like these are for the most part confined to the illiterate, or indulged in by those who, though better informed, adapt themselves, in their colloquial phraseology, to the people with whom they associate on terms of equality.

So far as we can judge of the present state of the English language in the United States, we can see no reason why a man of liberal education and competent abilities, who has applied himself diligently to the critical study of the English language, and is furnished with the proper helps for his work, may not challenge the confidence of the reading public by as fair a title as if he were born and educated in England. There is a common literature in the two countries. We can command all the standard works of English authors in the arts, sciences, and polite literature, and are able to appreciate, according to their value, all their philological labors.

Mr. Worcester's Universal Dictionary demands respectful examination, on account of his previous valuable labors in lexicography, and of its importance as a work more comprehensive in its vocabulary than any preceding English dictionary. And here it is due to the author, and to the public, that we should state, in a few words, the advantages under which he has prepared this elaborate work.

It is now about twenty years since his services were procured, on account of his well known diligence, fidelity, and exactness in literary labors, as the editor of a dictionary entitled "Johnson's English Dictionary, as improved by Todd and abridged by Chalmers; with Walker's Pronouncing Dictionary combined; to which is added Walker's Key to the Classical Pronunciation of Greek, Latin, and Scripture Proper Names." The plan of this compilation was fixed before the work was begun. The dictionary was published in the year 1828.

Several slender attempts had been made, by different authors, to supply the deficiencies of Johnson's vocabulary, before the publication of Todd's first edition (1814), which contains above fourteen thousand words more than are found in Johnson's abridgment. From this edition of Todd the abridgment of Chalmers was made. But the second edition of Todd (February, 1827) was received here in season for the insertion of the additional words it contained — amounting to about a thousand-in Mr. Worcester's Appendix. This great increase of words, formed, at the time of Todd's labors, a far more extensive English vocabulary than any that had preceded it. Still, it does not appear that the author prided himself so much upon the number of words he added, as upon the sources from which he derived them. He cited nearly eight hundred authors as authorities for the various words with which his dictionary was enriched, and thus showed an extent of reading and research greatly to his praise. "I might have omitted," he says, "some citations from modern writers. But the canons yet remain to be promulged, by which the extremes of opposite tastes are to be settled. The precise time at which antiquity is to be regarded as a rule is not yet determined. The standard 'one inclines to remove to the distance of a century and a half; another may, with as good reason, fix it three centuries backwards; and another six."" In Mr. Todd's long catalogue of authorities, we trace a succession from Chaucer down to the contemporaries of the lexicographer. Much, however, he thought remained to be accomplished, not only in regard to the vocabulary, but in the selection of examples, in etymology, in definition, and in orthography, in order to make "a beautiful whole, a standard of pure and exact phraseology"; a work requiring, in his opinion, a division of labor among industrious and learned men.

Mr. Worcester inserted the words from Walker's dictionary which were not contained in Chalmers; and when he perceived defects in Chalmers, which it was important to supply, in respect to etymology, definitions, or critical remarks, he inserted from Johnson or Todd the necessary additional matter. The most laborious and responsible part of the editor's work was that of applying Walker's principles of pronunciation to the fifteen thousand words in Todd's dictionary, which are not found in Walker's. After acquaint

ing himself thoroughly with these principles, as he manifestly did, the labor of applying them to most of the new words was, in a manner, mechanical, requiring only careful attention. But, as he justly remarked in his Preface, "a considerable number of the additional words, some of them. words now out of use, others local or provincial, and rarely found in books, and others from foreign languages, and not Anglicized, presented more or less difficulty. Respecting those words with regard to which Walker's method failed to furnish him with a guide, the Editor has availed himself of such other aids as he could obtain ; but some words he has left unpronounced, and with respect to some to which he has added the pronunciation, he may have fallen into error."

One other important portion of Mr. Worcester's labor in editing Todd's Johnson deserves notice, as a part of his preparation of materials for future use in a dictionary upon his own plan; namely, the addition of other authorities in words of doubtful pronunciation, where orthoëpists differ. Walker in such cases made liberal use of those who preceded him. In regard to words variously pronounced, he says, "The only method of knowing the extent of custom in these cases seems to be the inspection of those dictionaries which professedly treat of pronunciation. An exhibition of the opinion of orthoëpists about the sound of words always appeared to me a very rational method of determining what is called custom. This method I have adopted." Mr. Worcester pursued the method still farther, and applied it particularly to the words respecting which Walker had failed to exhibit the difference between his own pronunciation and that of other dictionaries. In addition to the works cited by Walker, Mr. Worcester made use of Perry's "Synonymous, Etymological, and Pronouncing Dictionary," which was published in 1805, the year before the last edition of Walker that was revised by himself was printed. To this edition of Perry's work it does not appear that Walker referred in any instance. It differs in the pronunciation of many words from Perry's "Royal Standard English Dictionary," and agrees frequently with Walker, where the other differs from him.

We may as well remark here, that Mr. Worcester, in his "Universal and Critical Dictionary," has adhered to the same plan of citing authorities differing from his own notation, under increased advantages; because, as he remarks, “most

of the works which are made use of as authorities have been published since his time." These are the dictionaries of Enfield, Jameson, Knowles, Smart, Reid, and Webster, besides Perry's, the title of which has already been given. We may here add, as our belief, that Mr. Worcester possesses a more numerous and valuable collection of books relating to English lexicography than any other individual in the United States; perhaps we might say, than any public library. Before Mr. Worcester had completed his edition of the abridgment of Todd's Johnson, and while the work was in progress, he formed the plan of his "Comprehensive Pronouncing and Explanatory Dictionary." But he was destined again to engage in a work of severe, servile labor, before advancing far in that of which he was the sole projector. He was induced to undertake an abridgment of Dr. Webster's quarto dictionary, published in 1828, according to the principles and rules prescribed by the author. It was an undertaking of great delicacy, and was attended with much perplexity, from circumstances on which, we suppose, it would not be come us to make any comments. He persevered, however, and accomplished the work of abridgment, if not to his own satisfaction or that of the author, in a manner which received the approbation of the author's best friends. This work was published in 1829.

Mr. Worcester's "Comprehensive Pronouncing and Explanatory Dictionary of the English Language, with Pronouncing Vocabularies of Classical and Scripture Proper Names," was published in 1830. It is a convenient manual in regard to its size, and answers truly to its title. It at tracted immediate notice, and was received with remarkable favor. No English dictionary since its publication has, we believe, been so extensively used as a manual, or so much relied upon as an authority. Besides the native men of learning in the United States who pronounced a decided judgment in its favor, it was spoken of in terms of strong approbation by an English classical scholar, a learned physician, and the author of a valuable "Medical Dictionary," - Professor Dunglison, of the University of Virginia. He said, soon after its appearance, "I can, without hesitation, award to this dictionary the merit of being best adapted to the end in view of any I have examined. It is, in other words, the best portable pronouncing and explanatory dictionary that I have seen, and as such is deserving of very extensive circulation."

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