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Trench (Archbishop). — continued. in his trunk, and the traveller in his knapsack, and that on some narrow shelves where there are few books this might be one.” “The Archbishop has conferred in this delightful volume an important gift on the whole English-speaking population of the world.” —.

This, it is believed, was probably the first work which drew general attention in this country to the importance and interest of the critical and ''historical study of English. It still retains its place as one of the most'' successful, if not the only, exponent of those aspects of words of which it ''treats. The subjects of the several Lectures are, (1) Introduction; (2)'' On the Poetry of Words; (3) On the Morality of Words; (4) On the History of Words; (5) On the Rise of New Words; (6) On the Dis&shy;tinction of Words; (7) The Schoolmaster's Use of Words.

This is a series of Eight Lectures, in the first of which Archbishop Trench considers the English language as it now is, decomposes some ''specimens of it, and thus discovers of what element it is compact. In'' the second Lecture he considers what the language might have been if the ''Norman Conquest had never taken place. In the following six Lectures'' he institutes from various points of view a comparison between the present language and the past, points out gains which it has made, losses which it has endured, and generally calls attention to some of the more important changes through which it has passed, or is at present passing.

This alphabetically arranged Glossary contains many of the most im&shy;portant of those English words which in the course of time have gradually ''changed their meanings. The author's object is to point out some of these'' changes, to suggest how many more there may be, to show how slight and subtle, while yet most real, these changes have often been, to trace here and there the progressive steps by which the old meaning has been put off and the