Page:Notes and Queries - Series 9 - Volume 9.djvu/307

 9S.IX.Aren,12,1902.) NOTES AND QUERIES.

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hope to benefit by the greatest philological work ever given to the world. Considering that supple- mental lists of words appear occasionally in our columns, it seems worth while to deal with what might possibly give rise to misconception. In the case of a language still in course of enlargement, if not of formation, absolute finality is not to be anticipated. A lexicon totius anglicitatis will never see the light. The constant developments of science and manufacture, the needs, the caprices, and even it may be the vanity of man, will lead to the regular increase of scientific terminology, and growths, hybrid and sometimes monstrous, con- tinually enlarge or debase our language. In the inclusion of words the editors have certainly not erred on the side of illiberality and want of hos- pitality to strangers. If possible, they have been too generous, and admitted words which men have used for a solitary occasion, and which are not likely to be heard of again. It cannot be maintained that because a word can be found which is not in the dictionary, it ought to be there. For all purposes of scholarship the dictionary fulfils every requirement, and it is at least the richest and most exemplary of which any language can boast.

It is needless to say that in the present instalment the rate of superiority over existing dictionaries is maintained. The number of words is 1,769, as against 151 in Johnson and 935 in the * Century,' while the illustrative quotations are 7,950 against 803 in the best equipped of competitors. But two words of Celtic origin are in the section, which is specially rich in words of Romance and Latin origin, and has a good many Greek derivatives, though few of these are of general currency. Though not large numeri- cally, the English element comprises many words which are interesting on account of their sense- history. On the first page we find leman, originally leofmonlief man = dear man. First used of both sexes as equivalent to sweetheart, and applied in religious or devotional language to Christ, the Virgin, &c., it came in time to be chiefly applied to the female sex, and to indicate unlawful love. The tender use of the word in a ballad, probably a cor- rupt form, will not be forgotten by the lovers of poetry :

God send every gentleman

Such hawk, such hounds, and such a leman. Under lemur, the spirits of the departed, we have, of course, Milton's splendidly picturesque and sug- gestive line

The Lars and Lemures moan with midnight plaint Lend, length, and Lent have elaborate histories. A quotation for lenity from Shakespeare better than that given would be Romeo's

Away to heaven respective lenity, And fire-eyed fury be my conduct now, on account of the explanatory contrast supplied. The use of lenvoy with the preliminary I is curious. Nashe has " we shall lenvoy him." Leonine verses are supposed to be derived from some poet called Leo or Leonius, who made use of this form of com- position. Leopard, forms of which are labarde, libarde, &c., has an interesting history. Not less noteworthy is that of leprechaun^ one of the two Celtic words in the section. Lesbian is glided over, very little being said, but the lesbian rule and square, which have been dealt with in our columns, are fully explained. Let naturally occupies a large

space. Under Levant much curious information is given or suggested. The same may be said of levee, the ordinary pronunciation of which in America differs from that in England. Level-headed reaches us from America. A singularly interesting account is given of " that sea beast Leviathan." Space could not be spared for Milton's full description of him, " slumbering on the Norway foam." Under levy (sb.) we desiderate Shakespeare's "foreign levy," as opposed to " malice domestic." Among words with a history worth study is libel, which, of course, was originally a diminutive of liber. Under liberal (=becoming to a gentleman) we should like to see Ben Jonson s " learned and liberal soul." Libertine and liberty have much interest, and the application of the former term to Antinomian sects of the six- teenth century is clearly explained. We cannot say that Milton's " licence they mean when they cry liberty" does not appear, though we fail to trace it. The spelling license for the substantive is indefensible.

The Ancestor : a Quarterly Review of County and Family History, Heraldry, and Antiquities. No. 1. (Constable & Co.)

The Ancestor, the first number of which reaches us from Messrs. Constable, is a great advance upon existing works of its class. It is at once handsomer in appearance, more convenient in shape, and more authoritative in the information offered. A voucher for the character of the new work is sup- plied by the number of articles from the pen of Mr. J. Horace Round, the first of living English genealogists. An instance of the historical and critical spirit in which the whole is written, a spirit in which Mr. Round has had for associates the late Prof. Freeman and Mr. Walter Rye, is shown in 'An "Authoritative" Ancestor,' in which the de- cision of 'Burke' concerning Sir Geoffrey de Estmonte or Esmondeys is freely challenged. It is pointed out as a characteristic chose d'lrlande that Sir Thomas Esmonde, at the head of whose pedigree in ' Burke ' stand the statements Mr. Round confutes, is endeavouring to secure from Govern- ment " promise of a special department for prose- cuting research into Irish history." The asser- tion that Sir Geoffrey de Estmonte, Knt., of Huntington, co. Lincoln, accompanied Strong- bow to the conquest of Ireland, A.D. 1172, and was one of the thirty knights who landed at Bannow, co. Wexford, is stated to be "a grotesque falsehood." No less destructive of myth is Mr. Round's account of ' The Origin of the Fitzgeralds ' of which the first portion appears. Dealing with the Gherardini ancestry, which originated in Ireland, not in Florence, Mr. Round is very humorous, speaking of " Irish earls panting for Roman ancestry." Such ambitions are surely superfluous in the case of a house which " not only traces its descent from a Domesday tenant-in -chief, but can make the probably unique boast that, from that day to this, descendants of his have been always numbered among the barons of the realm." Similar in spirit is the article of Mr. W. H. B. Bird on * The Grosvenor Myth.' Is Mr. Bird, how- ever, justified in saying that " the Scropes are almost forgotten "? Yorkshiremen ? and especially dalesmen, will hesitate to believe this. ' Some Anec- dotes of the Harris Family,' an illustrated paper of the Earl of Malmesbury, opens the volume. This interesting communication brings us on the track of Dr. Johnson and of Handel, a close frieud of the