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The materials, as we told our readers in 1879 (April 26th and September 13th), have been in process of collection ever since 1857, but arrangements for publication in the present form were not completed by Dr. Murray until 1879. We mentioned with lively satisfaction the hearty co-operation of American scholars, and announced that within ten years if possible the work, comprised in 7,000 quarto pages of the size of M. Littré's, would be complete, and that in 1882 the first part of 400 pages, containing the letter A, might be expected. As, however, it turns out that the letter. A will cover about 600 pages, we are not altogether surprised at the first part being smaller than it was intended to be, nor at the delay in its production. If the work proceeds on the same scale the estimate of the entire bulk must be raised to about 12,000 pages, or six very thick quarto volumes......The main points in which this work is immensely superior to all English dictionaries, and better even than M. Littré's splendid dictionary of the Its excelFrench language, are these. The history of living words is traced up from their earliest appearance by means of dated quotations, and all obsolete words which have died out since 1125 are similarly treated. The orthographic and phonetic development of words is indicated and illustrated in the quotations by the reten

lences.

tion of old spelling. The definitions of the meanings, as we are told in the 'General Explanations' (p. xi), 'have been framed anew upon a study of all the quotations for each word collected for this work, of which those printed form only a small part'; so that in this, 'the most successfully cultivated department of English lexicography,' a notable advance has been made."

The Athenæum in its second notice on the 16th of February deals with the etymological portion of the new dictionary. On the 21st of May, 1887, Parts II. and III., Ant-Boz, are reviewed. The three parts contained over 26,000 words, and Dr. Murray estimated that the dictionary when completed would contain 250,000 words. In addition to this large undertaking, the University has in preparation (1887) Concordance a concordance to the Septuagint, which will run Septuagint. into 2,500 large quarto pages.

to the

Obituary,

1872.

The obituary for the year includes Col. Burns, the last surviving son of the poet; Joseph Mazzini; Mr. Horace Mayhew; Mr. M. W. Savage; Mr. A. F. Forrester, better known under the nom de guerre of "Alfred Crowquill"; Dr. Norman Macleod, the editor of Good Words; Lord Dalling; Mr. S. W. Fullom; Mr. Thomas Keightley, author of the 'Mythology of Greece and Italy'; Mr. Albany W. Fon

blanque, for several years proprietor and editor of the Examiner; Dr. Husenbeth, author of 'Emblems of the Saints,' "an ardent and accomplished archæologist"; Sir John Bowring; Mrs. Somerville, at the age of ninety-two; and Dr. Edwin Norris, "one of our most eminent linguists, and one of the founders of Assyriology."

1873.

CHAPTER VIII.

THE ATHENÆUM, 1873-1875.

IN the number for January 4th, 1873, it is Mr. Thoms. announced that "Mr. Thoms has resigned the

Dr. Doran

'On Blue Stockings.'

Honorary Secretaryship of the Camden Society, an office which he has held for upwards of thirty-four years, during which the Society has issued about a hundred and ten volumes, illustrative of our political, ecclesiastical, and literary history. Mr. Alfred Kingston, of the Public Record Office, succeeds Mr. Thoms." The subject of the first review is "A Lady of the Last Century (Mrs. Elizabeth Montagu) illustrated in her Unpublished Letters. Collected and Arranged, with a Biographical Sketch and a Chapter On Blue Stockings,' by Dr. Doran." The chapter on Blue Stockings "may be said to contain, within a few pages, the whole literature of the subject." "Dr. Doran points out Boswell's blunder in saying that the celebrated term occurred for the first time about 1781, for at that date

'Benjamin Stillingfleet, the highly accomplished gentleman, philosopher, and barrack-master of Kensington,

had been dead ten years, and he had left off wearing blue stockings at least fourteen years before he died.' -The first mention by Mrs. Montagu of Stillingfleet and his stockings occurs in 1757."

'Ismael.'

'Kenelm Chillingly.'

Lord Lytton died on January 18th. On the day Lord Lytton. before his death he wrote a long letter of four pages to Mr. George Bentley, the publisher. He was born on the 25th of May, 1803. The Athenæum, in its obituary notice on the 25th of January, states that "between his Oriental tale of Ismael,' published in 1820, by Hatchard, and his forthcoming three-volume novel of 'Kenelm Chillingly,' about to be issued from the press by Blackwood, his labours as an author have, indeed, been enormous, varied, and for six and forty years together persistent and and unrelaxing......Material rewards, of a remarkable kind, have fallen into his hands, moreover, unsought, though not unmerited, during the lapse of his laborious life. By authorship alone he accumulated an enormous fortune. For the right accorded to one enterprising publishing house, that of Messrs. Routledge, to issue his novels, for a period of fifteen years, he received no less a sum than 30,000l. sterling. Thirty-six years ago, on the accession of the reigning sovereign, he was selected by the then Prime Minister, Lord Melbourne, as the representative man of letters,

Large sum

realized by his novels.

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