Page:Notes and Queries - Series 11 - Volume 4.djvu/165

 n s. iv. AUG. 19, Mil.] NOTES AND QUERIES.

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The Oxford English Dictionary. Scouring-Sedum.

(Vol. VIII.) By Henry Bradley. Si-Simple.

(Vol. IX.) By W. A. Craigie. (Oxford,

Clarendon Press.)

THE OXFORD DICTIONARY is making steady advance through the wide expanse of the letter S, and once more students and lovers of English should rejoice in the excellent arrangement, wealth of quotation, and precision of definition which put this great work far ahead of other col- lections of the kind. As usual, we have devoted some time and study to the sections before us, and the little that we are able to add is of no great moment, though it will show, we hope, our genuine interest in the English language. Like our late Editor, we rejoice in good poetry, and even are unfashionable enough to quote it ; while we prefer in every case the authority of a book to that of journalism, as the more permanent form repre- sents, or ought to represent, more care about language. Our comments are mainly biased by these two considerations.

Dr. Bradley in the first page of the text is quite up-to-date, for he notes the establishment in 1908 by General Baden-Powell of the " Boy scout." " Scrabble " = scrawl is first quoted from Matthew's Bible in 1537, and in other senses is effectively used by Bunyan and Mr. Kipling. " Scrannel " is employed " now chiefly as a reminiscence of Milton's use." The various words under " scrape " and " scratch " repay perusal. For " scree " we have in our notes the following modern and authoritative book-refer- ence. Lord Avebury hi ' The Scenery of England and the Causes to which It is Due ' (3rd ed., 1904, p. 210) writes : " The angle at which screes stand is often greatly exaggerated. It seldom exceeds 36." " Screw " is a good example of careful definition. " Scribble - mania " and " scribbleomania " might have been referred to Juvenal, vii. 52, from which they are derived, and which is quoted by Mark Pattison in a reduced form under the second. The first-mentioned of nouns under " scrip ' ' recalls to us the first sentence of ' The Ordeal of Richard Feverel ' with its mention of ' The Pilgrim's Scrip.' " A wee bit of sculduddery ahint the door," Stevenson, ' Letters,' i. 338 (1901), would carry on quotations which end with Walter Scott. We find no poetical quotation for " sculptor," and recall at once Shelley's fine sonnet ' Ozymandias,' hi which the features of the shattered visage Tell that its sculptor well those passions read Which yet survive, stamped on these lifeless

things.

' The Statue and the Bust ' of Browning, too, might supply

Set me on horseback here aloft, Alive, as the crafty Sculptor can.

" Sea " and its numerous compounds represent a wonderful ( piece of work. " Sea-coal " is com- monly explained as " coal brought by sea," but a curious doubt is cast on this by quotations, which may indicate marine denudation as the source of the phrase. For the hunting " season "
 * Mr. Sponge's Sporting Tour ' supplies in chap. i. :

" Mr. Sponge had pursued this enterprising life for some 'seasons.'" For "second sight" Mr. Lang in ' The Encycl. Brit.' (1875) is cited. We should prefer a reference to the great Oxford anthropologist Tylor, which his ' Primitive Culture ' (1891), vol. i. p. 143 or 447, would supply.. The sedan chair is said to be of obscure ety- mology, as Johnson's association of it with the- French town " has nothing to support it."" Does its use still survive, we wonder, in TrinuVy College, Cambridge, to take guests from the gate- across the Great Court to the Lodge ? For- " sedge " between Coleridge (1798) and O'Shaugh- nessy (1881) might come the passage which ends ' La Belle Dame sans Merci,'

Though the sedge is withered from the lake, And no birds sing.

The first page of Dr. Craigie's section intro- duces us to the " Siamese Twins " (1814-74)- Under " Sibyl " we recall Burke's epigram about " the contortions of the Sibyl, without the in- spiration," which has been traced hi our pages- back to The Spectator, No. 160 (10 S. viii. 426).. We note that this term was in earlier days applied to George Eliot, when she was somewhat solemnly' secluded by Lewes from the vulgar gaze. Speci- mens of this usage are in ' A Look round Lite- rature,' B. Buchanan, 1887. He says on p. 226 f " We left the Sibyl to her meditations " ; and on p. 315, " What I saw of George Eliot personally confirmed me in my impression that the sibylline business, both publicly and privately, had been overdone."

Under " Sicilian " the " Sicilian opening (in? chess) " is more precisely the " Sicilian defence,"" as appears from the following note we have from Blackburne's ' Games of Chess ' : "In the early fifties, and even up to the beginning of my own career at chess, the Sicilian was a favour- ite answer of Black's." We believe it was played by Mi*. Laaker recently in the last of his games against Janowski for the championship.

" Sick (longing) for " is not very common'

outside Shakespeare, but is twice given from Tennyson. Keats has it too, in a passage we cite for pure pleasure :

the sad heart of Ruth, when, sick for home, She stood in tears amid the alien corn.


 * Ode to a Nightingale,' vii.

It seems rather surprising not to find under- " sicklied " a well-known use, " sicklied o'er with the pale cast of thought " (' Hamlet,' III. i. 85). So good, indeed, is the Dictionary on Shakespeare that we were almost led to suspect that the text in question was in some way doubtful.

" Side " is a long and important article, and so are " sight " and " sign." " Sightworthy " is a useful adjective which might be revived. As there is no poetical quotation for " silent," of persons, in the nineteenth century, Keats's " Thou, silent form, dost tease us out of thought " ('Ode on a Grecian Urn') suggests itself. The same poet's " silver-white " flowers in the ' Ode- to Psyche ' might be noted as carrying on Shake- speare's charming use of the adjective for the cuckoo-flower in ' Love's Labour's Lost.' For " silver " of later Latin Mr. Jacobs's ' -3Esop ' and our own columns (1896) are quoted. It i& easy for a classical scholar to find a book -reference, e.g., Prof. Gudeman says in his ' Latin Literature