Page:Notes and Queries - Series 10 - Volume 11.djvu/219

 10 S. XL FEB. 27, 1909.] NOTES AND QUERIES.

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NOTES ON BOOKS, &a

The Oxford English Dictionary. Premised Pro- phesier. (Vol. VII.) By Sir James A. H. ' Murray. (Oxford, Clarendon Press.) THIS triple section contains abundance of interest. and includes 2,612 main words, 942 combinations ' explained under these, and 368 subordinate entries of obsolete forms. The number of illus- trative quotations is no fewer than 20,450, which is, as may be guessed, far in advance of previous dictionaries.

To " premonition " might have been added the definition in Myers's glossary to his ' Human Personality' (1903), "A supernormal indication of any kind of event still in the future." We are pleased to see Elia's ' Boast Pig ' quoted for a " premonitory moistening." " Prenzie," the odd word in Shakespeare's ' Measure for Measure ' (III. i. 94), is described as "probably an error," with no guesses or conjectures. This we regard as a wise abstention. " Prepare " is a long and valuable article, including the schoolboy sense, familiar in " preparation " and its brief form " prep." The last form is noted as " used at Clifton College from the beginning," but it could probably be traced further back, to Rugby School or other old foundations. The scholastic " prepoeitor," " praepostor," are well provided with examples. We should have given more than one quotation from Shakespeare for " pre- posterous," to include both tragedy and comedy. " Pre-Raphael " and " Pre-Raphaelite " were both used in early days for the celebrated band of painters. It is, however, inviting controversy to mention Rossetti among the three names given, as F. G. Stephens pointed out that he was not of the original band. The quotation from Dickens's Household Words (1850) might now be made from his collected papers in volume form, available in more than one edition. The quota- tions for " prerequisite " would be strengthened by the following : "To report conversation, it is a necessary prerequisite that we should be com- pletely familiar with all the interlocutors," Lock- hart, ' Life of Scott," vol. iv. Chap. v. p. 151 (1837). " Presbyter " and " Presbyterian " are admirably done. The various words under the heading " present " show how thorough the work of the ' Dictionary ' is. There is no quotation for " president " = " presiding deity, patron, or guar- dian," later than 1697. Lovers of literature may recall with us the last paragraph of the last chapter of ' Tess of the D'Urbervilles ' : "The President of the Immortals (in ^Eschylean phrase) had ended his sport with Tess." " President "= head of college is noted as used in four instances in Oxford, and one in Cambridge. The many senses of "press" (noun and verb) are carefully in- vestigated. " Pressman "= journalist, a word we do not care for, does not occur, apparently, earlier than G. A. Sala's tune in 1859. " Pretty " has an obscure and interesting history, figuring in its earlier meanings as " cunning, crafty, wily." We add to the adjective used absolutely the note that the fair green at golf, as opposed to the rougher ground outside, is called " the pretty " ; also the ornamented mark or line on a drinking- glass. " Fill it up to the pretty " is heard in such cases as an order. There is an interesting

note as to changes in Parliamentary usage regard- ing " the previous question." Thackeray has, it is pointed out, kept up the Shakespearian " pribbles and prabbles " in the Newcomes.' " Prig " will repay perusal, both for its analysis and its examples. To the latter we should add " Why, what a pair of prigs hast thou made of us ! " (Latimer to Fairford, Letter 3, ' Red- gauntlet.') "Prime Minister" also introduces some interesting Parliamentary history ; it only won its way to full recognition in 1905. The- artistic sense of " primitive " as applied to- painters is not traced further back than 1892 ; in The Spectator and Athenaeum. The quotation* for primroses are well divided into (a) in glossaries and vocabularies, (6) in herbals, botanical works, &c., (c) in literature. In the last section the editor has resisted what must have been surely a temptation to quote Shakespeare's " prim- roses that die unmarried " from ' The Winter's Tale.' He gives us Milton's " rathe primrose " ; and the remaining quotations are from Foote's Nabob' (1772), Wordsworth's 'Peter Bell' (the well-known phrase), and The Daily Netc* of 1899 ! Thus the whole of the nineteenth century is left unrepresented as regards standard prose and poetry. This is, we think, a great pity,, especially as no particular research was needed. " Primroses, cowslips, pansies, and the regular- open-eyed white blossom of the wood-anemone . . . .were set under our feet as thick as daisies in a meadow." occurs in ' The Wood ' chapter of Miss Mitford's ' Our Village.' Tennyson ha* in ' In Memoriam,' LXXXV.,

Knowing the primrose yet is dear, The primrose of the later year, AM not unlike to that of Spring. Keats writes on 10 April, 1818, from Teignmouth to J. H. Reynolds : "I found a lane banked on each side with store of Primroses, while the earlier bushes are beginning to leaf." A reference might have been made to Beaconsfield's primrose salad in view of its historic interest. The follow- ing passage we quote from ' Pages from a Private Diary' (p. 245, new edition, 1903), more for it tribute to Beaconsfield's feeling on a disputed question than as suitable for the ' Dictionary/ which includes, of course, the Primrose League and cognate forms :

" A lady writes to me [in 1897] about Beacons- field's affection for the primrose :

' ' I see that doubt is again thrown on the late Lord Beaconsfield's love for primroses. However incongruous such an affection may appear, he certainly felt it. There is an old man in my little country town, a very, very commonplace i old labourer, who, once, long ago, did rough \ digging work at Hughenden, and he declares that from the earliest garden primrose to the latest to be found in the woods, Lord Beaconsfield was never to be seen without a primrose in his buttonhole one blossom and no more which struck the man, who would have preferred a posy.' ' ' The ' Dictionary ' gives a quotation of 1898 from The Westminster Gazette which runs as follows : " Although Sir George Bird wood has never publicly claimed any credit in that direction, we are, we believe, not very wide of the mark in suggesting that he was the originator of ' Prim- rose Day.' " This sentence is now hardly true ; for Sir George gives in ' Who 's Who ' under hia name, " with assistance of late Prof. Chenery