No excellences, however, we apprehend, in definition or etymology will reconcile scholars to those peculiarities of spelling which are commonly known as Websterianisms, and which, with a few exceptions, are retained in the edition before us. The pages of this magazine are evidence that we ourselves regard them with no favor. But we are bound, in common honesty, to state, that, in every case in which Dr. Webster's orthography is given, it is accompanied by the common spelling, and thus the user of the book is left at liberty to take his choice of modes. We are also bound, in common fairness, to admit that many, if not all, of the quite limited number of changes put forward in the later editions of the Dictionary are, in themselves considered, unquestionable improvements, and that, if adopted by the whole English-writing public on both sides of the water, or even in this country alone, would redeem our common language from some of the gross anomalies and grievous confusion which now make it a monster among the graphic systems of the world, and a stumbling-block and stone of offence to all who undertake to learn it. Furthermore, it must be conceded that almost all our lexicographers have been nearly or quite as ready as Dr. Webster to attempt improvements in orthography, though they may have shown more discretion than he. It is not generally known, we suspect, but it is none the less a fact, that Johnson, Todd, Perry, Smart, Worcester, and various other eminent orthographers, have all deviated more or less from actual usage, in order to carry out some "principle" or "analogy" of the language, or to give sanction and authority to some individual fancy of their own. So much may be said in defence of Dr. Webster against the ignorant vituperation with which he has often been assailed. But, on the other hand, he is fairly open to the charge of having violated his own canons in repeated instances. To take a single case, why should he not have spelt until with two ls, instead of one,—as he does "distill," "fulfill," etc.,—when it was so desirable to complete an analogy, and when he had for it the warrant of a very common, if not the most reputable, usage? Again, it seems to us, that, if our orthography is to be reformed at all, it should be reformed not indifferently, but altogether; for it is, beyond controversy, atrociously bad, poorly fulfilling, as Professor Hadley justly remarks, (p. xxviii.,) its original and proper office of indicating pronunciation, while it no better fufils the improper office, which some would assert for it, of a guide to etymology. Emendations on the here-a-little-there-a-little plan, while they do no harm, do little good. They are but topical remedies, which cannot restore the pristine vigor of a ruined constitution. What we need is a reform as thorough-going as that which has been effected in the Spanish language. Shall we ever have it? or will the irrational conservatism of the educated classes, in all time to come, prevent a consummation so desirable, and so desiderated by the philologist? Max Müller thinks that perhaps our posterity, some three hundred years hence, may write as they speak,—in other words, that our orthography will by that time have become a phonetic one. It is not safe to prophesy; but, whether such a result comes soon or late, the credit of having accomplished it will not be due to those "half-learned and parcel-learned" persons who consider the present written form of the language as a thing "taboo," and look with such horror upon all attempts to better its condition.
As regards pronunciation, we think this will be generally considered one of the strong points of the new Dictionary. The introductory treatise on the "Principles of Pronunciation" is a comprehensive, instructive, and eminently practical, though not very philosophically constructed, exposition of the subject of English orthoëpy. It contains an analysis and description of the elementary sounds of the language, a discussion of certain questions about which orthoëpists are at variance, and a useful collection of facts, rules, and directions respecting a variety of other matters falling within its scope. As a sort of pendant to this, we have a "Synopsis of Words differently pronounced by Different Orthoëpists," which those who regulate their pronunciation by written authorities or opinions may find it useful to consult. The pronunciations given in the body of the work appear to be conformed to the usage of the best speakers. We notice with gratification that such vulgarisms as ab´do-men, pus´sl (for pust´ule!), sword (for s[=o]rd), etc., no longer continue to deface the book.
A large number of wood-cuts, mostly selected with good judgment and skilfully engraved, adorn the pages, and throw light upon the definitions. Besides being inserted in the vocabulary in connection with the words they illustrate, they are brought together, in a classified form, at the end of the volume. This is claimed as an "obvious advantage."
We have left ourselves but little space to notice the very rich and attractive Appendix, the first fifty pages of which are taken up with an "Explanatory and Pronouncing Vocabulary of the Names of Noted Fictitious Persons and Places," etc., by William A. Wheeler. The conception of such a work was singularly happy, as well as original, and, on the whole, the task has been executed with commendable fidelity and discretion. That occasional omissions and mistakes should be discovered will probably surprise no one less than the author. Attention has elsewhere been publicly called, in particular, to the fact that Owen Meredith is given as the pseudonyme of Sir Bulwer Lytton instead of his son, E. R. Bulwer: this would seem to be a bad blunder, but we understand that it was a mere error of oversight, and that it was corrected before the Dictionary was fairly in the market. If other mistakes should be brought to light,—and what work of such multiplicity was ever free from them?—Mr. Wheeler will doubtless call to mind, and his readers must not forget, the eloquent excuse which Dr. Johnson offers, in the preface to his Dictionary, for his own shortcomings:—"That sudden fits of inadvertency will surprise vigilance, slight avocations will seduce attention, and casual eclipses of the mind will darken learning; and that the writer shall often in vain trace his memory at the moment of need for that which yesterday he knew with intuitive readiness, and which will come uncalled into his thoughts to-morrow." The "Pronouncing Vocabularies of Modern Geographical and Biographical Names, by J. Thomas, M. D.," are evidently the product of laborious and conscientious research; and, while we differ widely from Dr. Thomas on various points, general and particular, we must allow that his vocabularies are as yet the only ones of the kind which approximate with any nearness to the character of an authoritative standard. The other Vocabularies or "Tables" of the Appendix seem also to have been prepared with sound judgment and much painstaking, but we cannot dwell upon them.
To sum up, in all the essential points of a good dictionary,—in the amplitude and selectness of its vocabulary, in the fulness and perspicacity of its definitions, in its orthoëpy and (cum grano salis) its orthography, in its new and trustworthy etymologies, in the elaborate, but not too learned treatises of its Introduction, in its carefully prepared and valuable appendices,—briefly, in its general accuracy, completeness, and practical utility,—the work is one which none who read or write can henceforward afford to dispense with.
Mindful of the old adage, we have instituted no comparison between Webster and Worcester. If the latter, excellent as it is, should now be found in some respects inferior to the former, it is to be remembered that the present edition of Webster has the great advantage of being four or five years later in point of time, and that it has been enriched by the use of materials which were not accessible to Worcester. We are glad to see a handsome tribute to the learning and industry of Dr. Worcester, and an honest acknowledgment of indebtedness to his labors, in Professor Porter's Preface. This is as it should be; and we hope that the publishers, on both sides, acting in the same spirit, will forego all unfriendly controversy. Let there be no new War of the Dictionaries. The world is wide enough for both, and both are monuments of industry, judgment, and erudition, in the highest degree creditable to American scholarship, and unequalled by anything that has yet been done by English philologists of the present century.
Dramatis Personæ. By Robert Browning. Boston: Ticknor and Fields.
The title of this new volume of poems expresses the peculiarity which we find in everything that Mr. Browning composes. Notwithstanding the remoteness of his moods, and the curious subtilty with which he follows the trace of exceptional feelings, he impersonates dramatically: there may be few such people as these choice acquaintances of his genius, but they are persons, and not mere figures labelled with a thought. Pippa, Guendolen, Luria, the Duchess, Bishop Blougram, Frà Lippo Lippi, are persons, however much they may be given to episodes and reverie. You find a great deal that is irrelevant to the thorough working-out of a character, much that is not simply individual: Mr. Browning gets sometimes in the way, so that you lose sight of his companion, but it is not as Punch's master overzealously pulls the wires of his puppets. You would not say that a man can find many such companions, but you cannot deny that they are vividly described. Perhaps they appear in only one or two moods, but these have individual life. They are discovered in rare exalted or peculiar moments, but these are in costume and bathed in color. Shutting and opening many doors, balked at one vestibule and traversing another, suddenly you surprise the lord or mistress of the mansion, or from some threshold you silently observe their secret passion, which is unconscious of the daylight, and is caught in all its frankness. You come upon people, and not upon pictures in a house.
But the pictures, too, in all Mr. Browning's interiors, seem to have grown out of the life of the persons. He has not merely come in and hung them up, as poor artist or upholsterer, to make a sumptuous house for fine people to move into. The character in any one of his poems seems to have devised the furnishing: it is distinct, exterior, not always helping or expressing the character's thought, sometimes to be referred to that only with an effort, but still no other character could have so furnished his house. You can find the individuality everywhere, if you care to take the trouble. But if you are in haste, or do not particularly sympathize with the person whose drama you surprise, you and he will be together like vagrants in a gallery, who long for a catalogue, dislocate their necks, and anathematize the whole collection. But do not then say that you have gauged and criticized the life that streams from Mr. Browning's pen.
How vivid and personal is, for instance, "Pictor Ignotus," one of the earlier poems! The painter is no longer unknown, for his mood betrays and describes him. It is not merely his speaking in the first person which saves him from melting into an abstraction, but it is that the "I" takes flesh and lives; the poet dramatizes or shows him.