Page:Notes and Queries - Series 12 - Volume 9.djvu/630

 520 NOTES AND QUERIES. [12 s. ix. DEC. 24, 1921. on A New English Dictionary on Historical Principles. Vol. x. U Unforeseeable. By W. A. Craigie. (Clarendon Press, 15s. net.) THIS section of the Great Dictionary cannot claim a place among those most important philologically. The chief of it is taken up by words compounded with the syllable un, beneath which lie concealed two separate native prefixes, the one simply privative, answering to the Latin in and the Greek aj/, a ; the other expressing reversal, answering to the German ent and carrying, to some extent, the sense of the Latin dis. The article on the first of these is a notable piece of work. Arranged in 15 main divisions, of which many are subdivided, and illustrated by a most impressive multitude of examples, it fills over 1 7 columns. Historically it is of very high interest. The use of both prefixes, covering as it does, or legitimately might, a preponderant portion of the verbs, adjectives and adverbs of the language, has presented a stiff problem, and Dr. Craigie is clearly justified in renouncing any idea of including every recorded form in which they occur. He has, however, clearly given doubtful claimants the benefit of the doubt, and we have found in the main alphabet a larger number than we expected both of still crude modern productions, and also of forgotten words of slight significance. The years when the best and most enduring of these compounds established themselves were those of the rise and develop- ment of English poetry nor is this surprising, for the highest potential and most satisfying expression of a large range of ideas is best achieved by a negative form. Of the older un- words none is more interesting than uncouth, illustrated here by a fine collection of examples. The large group of words including and com- pounded with under forms an important feature of the section. The earliest use of undergraduate appears to occur in Laud's works, in 1630. Several examples, from 1659 onwards, are quoted of its figurative use for one inexpert or imperfectly instructed. Undermine contains several good early quotations. The meaning " to persuade or win over, to tamper with or pervert, by subtle means " (5) is not marked as obsolete, though no later author than Milton is quoted. Of under- stood (past participle) we are told that it came into use in the latter part of the sixteenth century, being usual by 1600, there having successively preceded it the three forms understanden, understand and then under standed, the form to which quotation from the Thirty-nine Articles has givenja faint survival. Understudy is a more recent word than, we confess it, we had sup- posed, occurring first as a verb in the ' Slang Dictionary' in 1874. Lang, in 'Myth, Ritual and Religion' (1887), still thought it necessary to put it between inverted commas. The earliest instance of undertaker for the furnisher of funerals belongs to 1698 ; what word before that denoted the pollinctor ? The historical meanings of this word are very fully illustrated. Undertow, underwriter, undercroft are the subject of excellent articles, and we may mention the Scandinavian ugly, the old French ullage and umpire, with the words uncle, undern and ukase as further examples to suggest more expressly the range of the section. It contains in all 6,220 words, and the illustrative quotations number 26,034. The Wheatley Manuscript : a Collection of Middle English Verse and Prose contained in a MS. now in the British Museum, Add. MSS. 39574. Edited, with Introduction and Notes, by Mabel Day. (Published for the Early English Text Society by Humphrey Milford. 1 10s. net.) THIS fifteenth-century MS. was purchased for the British Museum as a memorial of the late H. B. Wheatley and as such is known by his name. Sir Israel Gollancz, in'a prefatory Note, informs us that it was brought to his notice in 1917. It would be interesting to learn more of its anterior history. Consisting of 88 leaves of vellum, it contains a collection of religious poems, of which five are otherwise unknown and one (the first in order) has never been printed before. Miss Day, in her Pre- face, gives a careful account of the manuscript, which is the work of two scribes, written in a cursive book-hand, with one or two interesting peculiarities (as, for example, a final crossed h, read by Miss Day as indicating a final e) and orna- mented with blue and red illuminated initials. None of the poems is of any high literary quality, but the ' Orison on the Passion ' with which the MS. begins has a certain simple devotional attractiveness ; the ' Prayer to the Blessed Virgin,' one of the poems not hitherto known, contains one or two curious conceits, and makes at any rate an impressioti of insistence ; and the ' Hymn to St. John the Baptist ' also new to English students is framed upon an interesting stanza. Three little prayers in rhyme ' To God,' ' To Oure Lady,' and ' To Seynt John ' respectively are the remaining new poems. ' The Seven Penitential Psalms ' and ' God's Complaint ' are the most important of the others ; and at the end of the MS. comes the ' Life of Adam and Eve ' the version printed in Archiv. 74. The intro- duction to this last is a most praiseworthy piece of work, and the notes on the text are equally good. to Corregponbente. 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