Miscellaneous.
NOTES ON BOOKS, &c.
This double section contains no fewer than 2,763 entries of words or combinations of words. The number of quotations is 15,983, as compared with 1,835 in 'The Century Dictionary,' its nearest rival in the matter of fullness. Latin and Romance words form, as might be expected, the bulk of the section, words in re— and retro being numerous. Words beginning with rh (separately prepared by Mr. C. T. Onions) are mostly of Greek origin, and classical influence, prevalent in the sixteenth century, has, it is stated, affected the spelling of "rime," preserved in our columns, though generally the modern press has "rhyme."
After a careful study of the pages before us, which begin rather oddly in the middle of an article, we are able to congratulate Dr. Craigie heartily on the results of his labours. We have been struck many times by the skilful analysis of shades of meaning in words apparently simple; here are, for instance, admirably thorough articles on 'Reserve' (verb), 'Resign,' 'Resolve' (verb), 'Rest' (verb and noun), and 'Retire.'
In the matter of quotations this section is very satisfactory—more so, we think, than others recently issued. That they are numerous and show a wonderful range is now taken for granted by all students of the 'Dictionary '; but on this occasion they are, for the most part, interesting in themselves, and representative of the best English thought and writing. Such additions as we offer are not, we think, of much importance, though we presume that they are preferable to the vague laudation of the average reviewer, who does not descend to details. Two main principles guide us, as we have explained before, in the suggestion of new quotations. We think it wise that the authority for a word should, where possible, be derived, not from journalism, but from an author of good standing; and, furthermore, that poets as well as prose writers should be represented, for it is the poet who, as Horace says, gives a word a new setting and a new reputation, so that some vocables which have generally kept low company are raised to a good standing, or, accused of being prosy, can boast of some of the starlike quality which the magic of poetry gives to language.
Being in touch with modern science, we also make a few suggestions in that line, but our technical writers, inventors, chemists, botanists, &c., can seldom be the pride of the lexicographer. They disregard the feelings of the learned, and invent strange verbs and hybrid forms with degraded facility. We should not ourselves admit as English at all such words as "reservoired" and the verb to "résumé" which are included here.
Various words derived from L. residēr and resīdǔre respectively are well distinguished. "Reside"=residence is used only by Brathwait in the seventeenth century. "Resiance," "resiancy," and "resiant" are all obsolete. A better modern quotation for "resignation" (acquiescence) than that given is "I must in silent resignation leave all of you," Ruskin, 'Realistic Schools of Painting' No. I. 20 (1883). In our steps "we automatically adjust the muscular resistance needful for each occasion," writes Nisbet in 'The Insanity of Genius' (1891), a quotation which may add to the scientific completeness of the article on the word italicized. Literary "resources" are commonly talked of by the modern reviewer. There is one quotation of this kind from Green's 'Short History.' Froude's essay on the book of Job in his 'Short Studies' (1853) supplies another, for on p. 3 he refers to "all the resources of modern scholarship." "Respect" (noun) is a long and very careful article. A passage from belles-lettres for its use as "deferential regard or esteem" is lacking in the nineteenth century. Perhaps one is not needed, still we please ourselves by recalling that Uncle Joseph's lecture on "'Education: its Aims, Objects, Purposes, and Desirability,' gained him the respect of the shallow-minded," as we learn from p. 3 of Stevenson's extravaganza 'The Wrong Box.' There is, we think, a scientific use of "response," as shown in the title of a recent book by J. C. Bose, 'Response in the Living and Non-Living.' The actors use of "resting" for unemployed might have been noticed. "Restive" is at first sight a curious word. Of animals it now generally means inclined to move, unable to stand still, a sense it has apparently acquired from the meanings "refusing to go forward; stubbornly standing still." "Restorationism" is an odd word, and indicates the "doctrine that all men will ultimately be restored to a state of happiness in the future life."
Under "restrain"=keep back from something desired, we should quote from Dryden's Prologue to 'Troilus and Cressida' the following pungent couplet:
These oafs should be restrained, during their lives,
From pen and ink, as madmen are from knives.
For "resurrection" (at the Last Day) in nineteenth-century usage we find two theological quotations only. Froude, dealing with a celebrated text in the book of Job, says in his essay in 'Short Studies' quoted above: "If there is any doctrine of a resurrection here, it is a resurrection precisely not of the body, but of the spirit." "Resurrection man" and "resurrectionary" are both quoted from Dickens; and the literary "resurrectionist" "in the grave-yards of deceased books," as Whipple, the American essayist, puts it in the quotation from his 'Essays and Reviews,' is not forgotten. No poetical quotation is given for "reticence." Tennyson has "such fine reserve and noble reticence" near the end of 'Geraint and Enid.' "Reverential" was one of the many adjectives which adorned the vari-coloured style of our late editor, e.g., "a not very brilliant nor reverential parody of Othello's speech in farewell to his occupation," J. Knight, 'David Garrick,' p. 109. From the same book might have been easily procured an example of a "revival" of a play, which is only noted from journalism, e.g., chap. vii. p. 110, "On the revival of 'King Henry V.,' given for the first time at Drury Lane, Garrick contented himself with the part of Prologue and Chorus." "Reverent" and "reverently" were favourite words with Ruskin, e.g., "The most reverently acceptant account of those days," 'Pleasures of Faith,' section 47. Tennyson has "To pine in that reverse of doom," 'In Memoriam,' LXXII.; he has also in 'Will Waterproof,' l. 159, "I sit, my empty glass reversed," and no poetical usage is quoted for these two words in the senses indicated. To "review"
