Page:Notes and Queries - Series 9 - Volume 12.djvu/18

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NOTES AND QUERIES. [9 th s. xn. JULY 4, im

The first pages of 'N.E.D.,' when printec twenty years ago, reached me at once in this nook then an utmost corner of the West anc I have looked for every succeeding issue with more eager eyes than they that watch for th morning. As soon as the first volume was bound I provided it a shelf in my study where it became a ledger, in a sense markec obs. in ' N.E.D.' i.e., " a book that lies per manently in some place," as the church Bible did from 1538. That shelf shows now five volumes, and yet there is room.

So soon as Carnegie sees what "unvalued jewels " words are, he will place ' N.E.D.' in every single one of his legion of libraries, and that with room to lie open. Satisfied that linguistic fragments, if each alone a glowworm, yet in constellations illume the pages of ' N.E.D.' more than any pictures could, I trust that that unique con- glomeration in no point scarce half made up will come forth to its last page consum- mate a Krrjfjia es aet, because derived from all early sources and exhausting them all. JAMES D. BUTLER.

Madison, Wisconsin.

DR. MURRAY'S statement " that -un may, when occasion calls, be prefixed to any adjective of quality, to any abstract noun derived from any adjective or participle, to any verb expressing an action that can be undone," wants restriction surely from the standpoint of the living language. Nowadays one can only say dishonest, dishonourable, disorder(ly), displeased, discontented; fur- ther, only incapable, inexplicable, infrequent, inglorious, illegible, inimitable, inexplicable, impracticable, improper, improvident, in- sanitary, insupportable, invaluable, invari- able, involuntary, indignity, injustice. The English language is riot so whimsical as it seems in its choice of the prefixes -in and -un : the former is used where either the Latin or French had it already, whereas the latter is added if the formation took place on English soil e.f/., unavoidable, unendurable, unin- teresting, unmoved, unjustifiable, unnatural, unpronounceable, unrecognizable, unsuitable, unusual. Exceptions from this ruling prin- ciple are very few, such as unjust (though injustice), unintelligible, indestructible.

G. KRUEGER. Berlin.

Unstung as an adjective or past participle may be found in "A Catalogue of Books Printed for and sold by Dormaii Newman, at the Sign of the Kings Arms in the Poultrey," as printed at the end of "The Work of Jesus Christ, as an advocate...

By John Bunyan, Author of 'The Pil- grims Progress.' London, 1688." In that bit of bibliography there is mention, among " the Works of Mr. James Janeway," of " Death Unstung, A Sermon preached at the Funeral of Tho. Moseley an Apothecary.'

Unram does not appear to be correctly used in the quotation which opened this pros- pective consideration of a seemingly unending task. To unram a gun ought to mean, not to unload it of what has been rammed into it, but to deprive it of the instrument used for ramming the charge in. E. S. DODGSON.

[The quotation MR. DODGSON sends for unwarrant had already been given by him, 9 th S. xi. 387.]

JEWS AND ETERNAL PUNISHMENT (9 th S. x. 229, 334 ; xi. 153). In Philip Abraham's ' Curiosities of Judaism ' is quoted, as an extract from * Paroles Eemarquables Orien- taux,' the story that Jews at Constanti- nople, disputing with Turks, said that no one would be permitted to enter Paradise but themselves, and to the Turks' question, " Where do you mean to place us 1 " answered, "You will be outside the walls." This answer is said to have been made of use for the imposition of a tent- tax in addition to the ordinary tribute, the Grand Vizier saying, " Since the Jews leave us outside the walls of Paradise, it is quite right that they should provide us with tents, so that we be not exposed to the sun or the rain."

There is no lack of more trustworthy evidence of the Jews' estimate of themselves n comparison with Gentiles which this itory illustrates. For the hostility towards jrentiles which Jews have undoubtedly enter- tained, Maimonides seems to have found justi- ication in traditional teaching ascribed to Moses, and he refers to both temporal and eternal consequences to the heathen accord- ng as they should observe or neglect the irst principles of morality. By the Abbe Fleury ('Mceurs des Israelites') Maimonides is quoted as saying, " We are obliged to kill all the Gentiles who refuse to keep the commandments of Noah, if they are in em- power," while he is also represented to have ieclared : " Whosoever engages to keep the Commandments of Noah, and is exact in his observance of them, has a right to the rewards >f a future state." There is no doubt, I )elieve, that in his own day the liberality if this learned Jew was less acceptable to lis co-religionists than it is at the present ime. I find Dr. Hermann Adler (in a sermon >rinted in 1869), to support his contention hat Judaism is not a proselytizing faith,