Page:The Journal of English and Germanic Philology Volume 18.djvu/143

 Schlutter 137 REVIEWS AND NOTES SOME VERY PERTINENT REMARKS ON TOLLER'S SUPPLEMENT TO BOSWORTH-TOLLERS ANGLO- SAXON DICTIONARY. I have been following with a great deal of attention the work of revising and enlarging his edition of Bosworth's Anglo-Saxon Dictionary Prof. Northcote Toller is performing in the supplement .to that work and has now carried as far as Geolwe in the two parts issued. In the course of my researches I have had an opportunity to examine somewhat closely these parts and I feel impelled to offer, in a spirit of helpfulness, the following remarks which are prompted by my deep interest in the subject. If it is the aim of the reviser to make the Bosworth-Toller a storehouse of reliable information as to Old English word material actually preserved, I am very much afraid the present method of presentation, if persisted in, will not only deprive the Dictionary of a good deal of its usefulness and trustworthiness, but to some extent will prove to be harmful to the interests of Old English. In saying this I refer, in the first place, to the practice of reducing the quotations to a more or less uniform standard of accentuation and spelling not warranted by MS. evidence; in the second place, I refer to the pernicious habit of quoting vouchers for words booked from editions of texts either antiquated or downright unreliable, when more modern and critical editions are at hand for the puipose. For example, one is fairly amazed to meet in the Supplement with quotations from "Ps. Srt.," which is Prof. Toller's abbreviation for "An Anglo-Saxon Psalter (printed from MS. Cotton, Vespasian A. 1), edited by J. Stevenson, Surtees Society, Nos. 16, 19, 1843- 1847. " Now this is the Psalter, widely known as the Vespasian Psalter, ever since in 1885 H. Sweet incorporated it in his edition of The Oldest English Texts. On page 187 of this work Mr. Sweet says of Stevenson's text that it " abounds with such gross blunders" and deviates from the MS. in certain instances so deliberately as to make this edition "a disgrace to English scholarship." I do not know that a dissenting voice has been raised against such a sweeping condemnation. Certain it is that from 1885 on scholars have been careful to leave Stevenson's edition aside and quote from that of Sweet, and the Psalter is generally referred to as the Vespasian Psalter. Yet, the Supplement takes slight note of this general practice and continues quoting from Stevenson's unreliable text as the Dictionary did. 1 How unreliable this text is may be seen from the quotations in the Supplement sub d-bidan 1 In the table of explanations prefixed to part I of the Supplement, I find sub "Additional Contractions" Ps. V.=The Vespasian Psalter, in O. E. Texts, edited by H. Sweet. It would seem, then, that Sweet's edition is occasionally quoted from. So far, however, I have not met with a single instance.