Page:Notes and Queries - Series 9 - Volume 12.djvu/17

 a* s. xn. JULY 4, 1903.] NOTES AND QUERIES,

9

the word in circulation by proposing com- petitions on the model of my * Irish Literary Learics,' which they named expressly. I had reprinted them meanwhile in 'Idyls of Killowen,' published by Mr. James Bowden in July, 1899. MATTHEW RUSSELL, S.J. St. Stanislaus's College, Tullamore. [See 9 th S. ix. 188, 314.]

"TORY." What does the word tory mean in the exclamation by the servant Leonelo in Edward FitzGe raid's version of Calderon's " Peace to this house ! and not only that, but a tory besides " 1 POLITICIAN.
 * The Painter of his own Dishonour ' :

ENGLISH GRAVE AT OSTEND. At Ghistelles (Gistel), Belgium, is the following inscrip- tion :

" Sacred to the memory of George, Esq., of

Skelbrook Park, Yorkshire, died at Ostend 9 March, 1843, aged 64 years."

I should be glad to learn his name.

C. T. DAVIS. Wandsworth.

"UNRAM." (9 th S. xi. 188, 230, 277.)

DR. MURRAY, in answer to a question whether " unram " and similar compounds of un- should be found in * N.E.D.,' inclines to a negative reply. He says they are too multi- tudinous, and may grow out of any present participle, out of several classes of adjective, and out of all abstract nouns derived from them. The haul swept in by the net of lexicography which caught all vocables with the un- prefix would become " double its existing mass," and the endeavour would be alike impossible and useless, &c.

No wonder DR. MURRAY, after an embar- rassment of riches for three decades, pants for the goal where he can spend the Sabbath of his years in golden uncontrolled enfranchise- ment, and hence must now prefer contraction to expansion.

But DR. F. J. FURNIVALL (9 th S. xi. 277) sees a use in what DR. MURRAY would reject as refuse. He holds that the locutions where the prefix un- has been actually found are much fewer than the enormous host it can be set before in theory. Nothing also has sur- prised him more than the early date at which many of these finds are used. Early dates are the old wine of language. Accordingly, he would have ' N.E.D.' " contain a dated list of all the un- words sent in " by all its army of readers (a noble army), " even if space

will not allow of each word being defined." The Delegates of the Oxford Press, as DR. FURNIVALL believes, are too generous to grudge 100^., if need be, to give the. dates and authors) he proposes.

In looking at the compounds of un- in Shake- speare, where, thanks to Schmidt and con- cordances, they are open to observation, one is inclined to side with DR. FURNIVALL rather than with DR. MURRAY. Few Shakespearian students will not confess that the German's explanations of words having the un- prefix and there are hundreds have taught them something, occasionally something not clear in translation, and so given in the original. See words which Schmidt pronounces " diffi- cult," or where he marks his definitions with an interrogation as conjectural or probable ; thus, unbonneted, uncoined, undetermined, unkind, unstanched, unadvised, uncompre- hensive, &c.

Shakespeare's formations beginning with un- must approach a thousand. How far did he make them, and how far copy earlier writers 1 How far did he enrich the language 1 ? Many of his un- compounds have been adopted by followers, as " unsphere " by Milton, &c. ; and more of them will be resurgent, as other vocables have risen again. But no helps for forming opinion on these points exist, or will exist, comparable to the unprinted cards in the custody of DR. MURRAY. Many a single word among the class of innocents the Doctor would dismiss may give us pause ; for in- stance, we read (' Romeo,' III. iii. 112), " Un- seemly woman in a seeming man ! And ill- beseeming beast in seeming both ! "

How did Shakespeare come by "unseemly"? He makes a fourfold play on " seem." Did he make up unseemly for the nonce ? or have ' N.E.D.'s ' searchers found it earlier? How did James's translators get it in 1611 1 They only of the Hexaplists use it at all (1 Cor. xiii. 5 ; Rom. i. 27). Did they contract it from the Geneva "unbeseming" (sic) of 1557, or did they copy it from the dramatist of 1592? The golden grain we here crave may lurk in DR. MURRAY'S rejected materials.

I am surprised DR. MURRAY can dream of holding an army of dates imprisoned. He would thus throw away the dearest thing he owns as 'twere a careless trifle. What page of his 7,000 could he have written unaided by verbal dates ? What is it but dates which, differentiating his word-book from all prede- cessors, entitle it to be called by way of eminence New and Historical ? Nor can any editor foresee what verbal dates will be linguistically epoch-making, or which, if any, will prove of no significance.