The Times, commenting on the slovenly composition of the Queen’s Speeches to Parliament, proposed the cause of the fact as a fit subject for the investigation of our professional thinkers. The phrase suggests a delicate reproof to those who assume for themselves the title of thinker, implying that any person may engage in this occupation just as he might, if he pleased, become a dentist, or a stock-broker, or a civil engineer. The word thinker is very common as a name of respect in the works of a modern distinguished philosopher. I am afraid, however, that it is employed by him principally as synonymous with a Comtist.
The Times, in advocating the claims of a literary man for a pension, said, “he has constructed several useful school-books.” The word construct suggests with great neatness the nature of the process by which school-books are sometimes evolved, implying the presence of the bricklayer and mason rather than of the architect.
[Dr. Todhunter might have added feature to the list of words abusively used by newspaper writers. In one number of a magazine two examples occur: “A feature which had been well taken up by local and other manufacturers was the exhibition of honey in various applied forms.” “A new feature in the social arrangements of the Central Radical Club took place the other evening.”]—Macmillan’s Magazine.
LITERARY NOTICES.
The Dictionary of English History. Edited by Sidney S. Low, B. A., late Scholar of Balliol College, Oxford, Lecturer on Modern History, King’s College, London; and F. S. Pulling, M. A., late Professor of Modern History, Yorkshire College, Leeds. New York: Cassell & Company, Limited.
The first thought that suggests itself upon taking up Messrs. Cassell & Company’s “Dictionary of English History” is “why was this important work not done long ago?” The want of such a book of reference is not a new one but has been long felt by students and amateurs of history. Indeed there is hardly a man or woman who has not at some time or other felt the need of furbishing up his or her historical knowledge at short notice. One may hunt the pages of a history by the hour and not find the date or incident he wants to know about. The editors of this stout volume, Sidney J. Low, B.A. and F. S. Pulling, M.A., have made the successful attempt to give a convenient handbook on the whole subject of English history and to make it useful rather than exhaustive. The present work is not an encyclopædia, and the editors are aware that many things are omitted from it which might have been included, had its limits been wider, and its aim more ambitious. To produce a book which should give, as concisely as possible, just the information, biographical, bibliographical, chronological, and constitutional, that the reader of English history is likely to want is what has been here attempted. The needs of modern readers have been kept in view. Practical convenience has guided them in the somewhat arbitrary selection that they have been compelled to make, and their plan had been chosen with great care and after many experiments. It should be said that though the book is called a Dictionary of English History that the historical events of Scotland, Ireland and Wales are included. The contributors for special articles, have been selected from among the best-known historical writers in England, and no pains have been spared to make this book complete in the field it has aimed to cover.
That high authority, the London Athenæum, has the following words of praise for this work:—
“This book will really be a great boon to every one who makes a study of English history. Many such students must have desired before now to be able to refer to an alphabetical list of subjects, even with the briefest possible explanations. But in this admirable dictionary the want is more than supplied. For not only is the list of subjects in itself wonderfully complete, but the account given of each subject, though condensed, is wonderfully complete also. The book is printed in double columns royal octavo, and consists of 1119 pages, including a very useful index to subjects on which separate articles are not given. As some indication of the scale of treatment we may mention that the article on Lord Beaconsfield occupies nearly a whole page, that on Bothwell (Mary’s Bothwell) exactly a column, the old kingdom of Deira something more than a column, Henry VIII. three pages, Ireland seven and a half pages, and the Norman Conquest three pages exactly. Under the head of ‘King,’ which occupies in all rather more than seven pages, are included, in small print, tables of the regnal years of all the English sovereigns from the Conquest. There is also a very important article, ‘Authorities on English History,’ by Mr. Bass Bullinger, which covers six and a quarter pages, and which will be an extremely useful guide to any one beginning an historical investigation.
“Many of the longer articles contain all that could be wished to give the reader a concise view of an important epoch or reign. Of this Mrs. Gardiner’s article on Charles I. is a good example. Ireland is in like manner succinctly treated by Mr. Woulfe Flanagan in seven and a half pages, and India by Mr. C. E. Black in six, while the Indian Mutiny of 1857-8 has an article to itself of a page and a half by Mr. Low. Institutions also, like Convocation, customs like borough English, orders of men such as friars, and officers like that of constable, have each a separate heading; and the name of the contributors—including, besides those already mentioned, such men as Mr. Creighton, Profs. Earle, Thorold Rogers, and Rowley, and some others whose qualifications are beyond question—afford the student a guarantee that he is under sure guidance as to facts.”