Page:The Dial vol. 15 (July 1 - December 16, 1893).djvu/20

8 or for his pathetic life-story. It was not Byron's slender lyrical gift that made him a Continental favorite, but the fact that he stood as an energetic and picturesque spokesman of the revolutionary spirit. Even Shelley is practically unknown outside of England and America. The greatest of living lyrists—pace—Mr. Prestage is probably Signor Carducci; but to how many who are not Italians is he more than a name? Hugo's highest achievement was in the lyric, but to the English-speaking world he was the novelist and hardly more. These statements apply with almost equal force to Herr Björnson; but who, unfamiliar with Norwegian, thinks of Björnson as a lyric poet? There is no help for it. We can translate novels, and plays, and epics; we cannot translate songs. A nation must be content with its own lyrists; the genius of the singer proper is, by no process known to the alchemy of the translator, reproducible in another form of speech than that in which it finds native expression.

The London "Literary World" recounts an alleged recent "experience" of Mr. Herbert Spencer, telling us that the philosopher has "received a letter from a Wild West American publisher, asking how much he would take for the exclusive right to publish his poem, ‘The Faërie Queen,’ in the States." The story is not even ben trovato, but it shows well enough how we are libelled at times by the arrogant foreigner. In this case, revenge follows promptly, for the same issue of the paper, a few pages further on, informs its readers that Mrs. Deland is a daughter of Mrs. Julia Ward Howe; and, still later, inserts an anxious query as to the authorship of the line,

People who live in glass houses should not pretend that the brown-stone fronts of their neighbors are constructed of the same brittle material.

 COMMUNICATIONS.

PERHAPS AN ERROR. (To the Editor of .)

The frequent letters of “F. H.” to “The Nation” are read with great interest and valued very highly, I am sure, by all American students of modern English. Nevertheless, there is something in these letters (if it may be said) that would be pleasanter if it were different. A reader of a half-dozen of them cannot help wondering whether “F. H.” has ever made a mistake,—the master is so masterful, his censure is so pungent.

The grammatical question examined below is trivial, perhaps, but the examination itself becomes important if it be regarded as helping somewhat towards answering the more serious inquiry,—Has “F. H.” ever erred?

It should be premised that “F. H.” has identified himself in “The Nation” (more than once, I think) as the author of “Modern English,” and that there cannot be any impropriety, therefore, in referring to him here as the author of that well-known and very valuable work.

The present case is this: At page 85 of his “Modern English” Dr. Hall quotes from Marsh's “Lectures on the English Language,” and in one of the sentences quoted inserts sic in brackets after known to. This is the sentence quoted from Marsh's Lectures:

“The word respect, in this combination, has none of the meanings known to [sic] it, as an independent noun, in the English vocabulary.”

Dr. Hall says of this sic in a foot-note:

“A Lord Grenville of former days wrote of ‘a long and destructive warfare, of a nature long since unknown to the practice of civilized nations.’ Here, remarks Coleridge, ‘the word to is absurdly used for the word in.’ (‘Essays on His own Times,’ p.262.) Not unlike the nobleman's ‘unknown to,’ the context considered, is Mr. Marsh's ‘known to.’ ” (“Modern English,” p. 85.)

Dr. Hall's sic and foot-note seem to show that he regards such uses of known to and unknown to as lacking authority and censurable.

It may be assumed here that Dr. Hall does not find anything objectionable in a use of known to that occurs often in his own writings, as in the following instance: “ the historical fact, known to everybody” (“Modern English,” p. 192, foot-note). Such use has been very common for a long time. But the same construction is common when the word with which known to or unknown to is connected has been substituted by metonymy for something else,—as camp for people in the camp.

“ in token of the which, My Noble Steed, knowne to the Campe, I give him.” (“Coriolanus,” Act I., sc. ix.)

“ custards, cheesecakes, and minced pies, which were entirely unknown to these parts”(Lady M.W. Montagu, Letter, Nov. 27, N. S., 1753.)

“Another accomplishment was that of copying manuscripts, which they did with a perfection unknown to the scholastic age which followed them.”Cardinal Newman, “Historical Sketches,” vol. ii., p. 464.)

The line is not distinct between such cases and the following:

“In other cases it is not the love of finery, but simple want of education, which makes writers employ words in senses unknown to genuine English.”(J. S. Mill, “Logic,” Bk. IV., ch. v., sect. 3.)

“This is the only use of the word in Johnson, the following three being unknown to dictionaries till very recently.”(“A New English Dictionary on Historical Principles,” Remark under Alternative.)

“Noble Tribunes, It is the humane way: the other course Will prove to[o] bloody: and the end of it, Unknowne to the Beginning.” (“Coriolanus,” Act III., sc. i.) “Enoch's white horse, and Enoch's ocean spoil Not only to the market-cross were known, But in the leafy lanes behind the down.” (Tennyson, “Enoch Arden,” 11, 93-7).

“Most of these wretches were not soldiers. They acted under no authority known to the law.” (Macaulay, “Hist. Eng.,” ch. xii.)

A remark made by Dr. Hall concerning another locution may be appropriately quoted here: “Even such a purist as Lord Macaulay uses it more than once.” (“Modern English,” p. 300.)

The examples given above could be supported by a larger number of similar citations now before me, if there were space for printing so many. R. O.. New Haven, Conn., June 19, 1893.

