Page:Notes and Queries - Series 9 - Volume 4.djvu/247

 9th S. IV. Oct. 14, '99.] 319 NOTES AND QUERIES. Poges Church the figure of a " man bestrid- ing what looks like a hobby-horse" really represents a cherub just as such a being might appear to the muddled intelligence of a glass painter of the seventeenth century. The window is dated 1642. F. G. S. Links with the Past (7th S. ii. 486, 515: iii. 138, 178, 275, 358, 464 ; 9th S. iv. 275V—I am only forty-eight, and my father was born in 1783. He could just remember the first French Revolution. His grandmother related to him that her mother, at the age of twelve, accompanied Archbishop Sancroft's sister in his coach from Lambeth Palace to the Tower of London on the day when he, with the six other bishops, was released. My father had the honour as a Gentleman Usher of serving four sovereigns in succession. W. S. R. A correspondent has recently reminded me that he once heard my father—the late Isaac Taylor, of Stanford Rivers—deliver a lecture in Exeter Hall, in which he described his feeling of horror on hearing, as a boy, of the execution of the King of France. My father was born in 1787. I happened first to see the light in the year 1837. Henry Taylor. Birklands, Southport. NOTES ON BOOKS, &o. A Xeiv Enulish Dictionary on Historical Principles. Edited by Dr. Jas. A. H. Murray.-Vol. V. I-In. (Oxford, Clarendon Press.) With a double section, comprising the letter / as far as In (adverb), the fifth volume of Dr. Murray's great national undertaking begins. It is specially pleasant, in face of the advertisement in high places of opposing undertakings—we will not say rival, since genuine rivalry is not to be conceived—to congratulate the editor upon the progress that is being made, a progress that before many years have passed will banish all idea of competition. Arrange- ments at the outset were naturally difficult. Now, however, that the whole has got into full swing, the rate of advance is eminently satisfactory, lo give once more a class of statistics such as we have previously supplied, we may say that this instal- ment contains 3,615 words, of which 2,503 are main words, against 1,930 in Funk's 'Standard Dic- tionary' and 501 in Johnson, and 14,408 illustrative quotations, against 2,242 in the ' Century,' the largest number given in any previous dictionary. Of words in / nearly 30 per cent, are obsolete, a proportion greater than in any previous part, little more than 16 per cent, of words in H having dis- appeared from use. For this curious fact the explanation is that the Latinic formations of the sixteenth and seventeenth centuries, many of which were pedantic, cumbrous, and unnecessary, and were " born only to die at once or after a very short living use," are those which have become obsolete, and not the native Teutonic words. A subject for an essay, which we cannot attempt, seems sug- gested. Rapidly as Latinic words have disappeared in England, they seem to have gone with even greater rapidity in France. Among the words and locutions in Moliere, for instance, very many which are explained in notes and glossaries offer no diffi- culty whatever to English readers. This becomes even more obvious in a work such as the ' Lexique de la Langue de Moliere' of M. Livet, not yet four years old, wherein innumerable words of Latin origin are regarded as calling for explanation. Turning to words of special interest, we find imbecile described as a word of unknown composition. Until the last edition the dictionary of the Academy supported the spelling imbicille in place of that of imbecile now favoured. The derivation mentioned with disparagement by Littre from in privative and bacillns is not even discussed here, though some- thing is said of the erroneous suppositions of Bailey, Johnson, and Walker. The history as a verb of imbecile is, we are told, not to be disentangled from that of embezzle. It is noteworthy that in French the double I, dropped in imbecile, is retained in imbe'cillite. A very interesting and important study is given of idol. Sufficiently obvious is, of course, the rise in iiSwXov. A very fine illustration of one use of idol is given from Mandeville. Idolum, pi. idola, is used by Purchas, Bacon, and Henry More, ana by some modern writers who deal with Bacon. Icon, in some respects a kindred word, also appears, with iconic, iconism, and other derivatives, includ- ing iconantidyplic! While iconoclast was used in 1596, two centuries have to pass before we get iconoclasm. Iconomaca was used in 1552, whence Sir T. Browne and Blount both get the erroneous construction iconomiccU. A full and useful expla- nation of the use in chemistry of ide is given, and we then come to idea, the original development of which took place in Greek, though other applica- tions became common before the end of the six- teenth century. Under ilk it is shown that the mistaken use of that i'M=family, clan, set, or lot, is not confined to the journalist or novelist. The first chronicled employment of it is by Miall, presumably Edward, in the i< onconformist in 1845. /// is natur- ally an important word, the ulterior etymology of which is unknown. It is not, we are told, etymo- logically related to O.E. yfel, evil, though from the twelfth century the two words have been synonym- ous. Evil, indeed, was often written so as to rime with thrill, kill, 4c. These things cannot here be fully illustrated, and the reader must turn to the ' Dictionary.' Close study is likely enough to be bestowed in these days uj>on imperial, imperialist, &c. The history of the word is edifying. We may draw attention also to impeach, imprimatur, import, and imjn-ore, the primary signification of which, " to turn to good account," is familiar in Watts's " improve each shining hour." Wherever we turn, indeed, the ' Dictionary' is full of profit and delight. The Book of Dene, Deane, Adeane: a Genealogical History. By Mary Deane. (Stock.) We always welcome gladly works relating to family history when the result of conscientious labour. This volume has defects, but it contains a great number of facts lucidly arranged. In the preface we are told that it owes its existence to long years of patient research on the part of Mr. J. Bathurst Deane, but that the loss of his sight precluded his making his voluminous notes into a complete book. This is to be deplored for the compiler's sake, and