9* s. V.APRIL 14, 1900.] NOTES AND QUERIES.
299
of what he wanted to believe. He was an evil-
speaker, and he has much that is bad to say con-
cerning the men of his time. Most men of his time,
however, deserve all the ill that can be said of
them. It is to the credit of Burnet that the noblest
men of the day were his best friends. Especially
to his credit is his association with Lord William
Russell; and in his treatment of that nobleman and
the " sweet saint" his wife he is shown at his best.
Hero - worshippers will do well to steer clear of
Burnet's pages. We have marked for comment or
extract scores of passages from his ' Characters.'
That the purpose of citing these must be abandoned
is but too apparent. Under many pages it is hope-
less to convey an idea of the working of Burnet's
alert and rather scornful mind. Upon Montrose
Burnet is needlessly and unjustly severe, sneering
at his self-confidence and his vain promises to
Charles, and charging him, even, with personal
cowardice. The passage in which this arraign-
ment is made Burnet had the grace subsequently
to strike out. There is not, it is needlesss to say, the
slightest justification for it. In his defence of Laud
even, in one respect eminently judicious, he cannot
refrain from a customary sneer, speaking of the
prelate as " an abject fawner on the Duke of Buck-
ingham, and as a superstitious regarder of dreams."
A bright light is cast upon history during the
period of the alliance between Cromwell and
Louis XIV., and some, it is to be feared, well-
merited aspersions are cast upon the Prince de
Conde and other French leaders, into the much-
disputed question when Charles became a Roman
Catholic we will not enter. This point and that of
the birth of the heir of James II. are those which
in Burnet's history have aroused most antagonism.
In praising afresh this tine edition of an important
work, we express once more our hope that it may
be continued. Mr. Airy, as we have announced,
is not free to continue a task that a scholar such as
Mr. Firth might perhaps undertake. We should
be glad also of carefully edited reissues of other
syorks of Burnet not hitherto or recently repub-
lished.
A New English Dictionary on Historical Principles.
Edited by Dr. James A. H. Murray. In Infer.
(Oxford, Clarendon Press.)
THIS double section of vol. v. of this great work issued under the personal care of Dr. Murray carries the alphabet from in to infer. To set before our readers particulars such as have been given in the case of previous parts, we may say that it contains 3,030 words in all, as against 1,931 ir Funk's ' Standard,' 1,875 in the ' Century,' anc 1,565 in CasselPs (Johnson gives only 313), while its illustrative quotations are 15,816 againsl 1,907 in the most formidable of its rivals. 0" these words, as will be supposed from the prefix the vast majority are of Latin origin or derivation the single word of Old English age being inch_ the standard of measurement. This is described as a word "of early adoption not in the other Teutonic languages." Among the early forms we find 'imche Shakespeare's uses of inch are singularly happy witness " Aye, every inch a king," and " Let her paint an inch thick." It is not the fault of dictionary makers that very many of the words in in used b.\ modern writers are affected or trivial, and tha' innumerable words, such as incontestable, incon trovertible, and so forth, are found under their oppo sites, contestable t controvertible, &c. We must noi
mit to mention though sufficient attention has,
perhaps, already been drawn to the fact that the
jresent instalment contains a word with as inariy
etters in it as the famous honorificabilitudinity,
which has been regarded as the longest word in the
anguage. Even more uncouth than the word with
which it is compared is this monstrosity, which is
ncircumscriptableness. Special attention is drawn
n the prefatory note to words such as inaugurate,
ncarnation, incense, incubus, indenture, index, India,
ndigo, individual, indulgence, and such compounds
as Indo-European, Indo-Germanic, and very many
others. We cannot dwell on these, to which we
- an only refer the reader, any one of them furnish-
ng subject for an explanatory account or essay. We can but dip, after our wont, into the part, and mention what specially strikes us, leaning, naoir- ally, to the literary rather than the scientific importance of each word. The soft, pretty Italian word for a mistress or sweetheart, in(n)amorata, is irst traced in Sherburne's ' Forsaken Lydia,' 1651. Inamorate is, however, found in Marston, 1602, and Chapman, 1605, and inamorato in Greene. Shakespeare's incarnadine, fine in itself, and ennobled in use, is found as an adjective in Sylvester in 1591. Of its employment as a verb Shakespeare furnishes the first instance. In regard to inaugurate, Dr. Murray naturally speaks of its use merely to signify begin as "grandiose," which is better than saying "journalistic." In- auspicate=i\l-omened, inauspicious, long obsolete, is used so late as Sir Richard Steele. A coarse and curious word, now, of course, obsolete, and not likely to be revived, is inbelch. Incunabula as applied to books belonging to the infancy of print- ing, practically works of the fifteenth century, is first used by Neale, 'Notes Dalmatia,' &c., who, however, speaks of it as a foreign word, "a name that Germans give to books printed before 1500." A little later the singular was employed, with inverted commas, in the Saturday Review. Incon- tinently = straight way, forthwith, is, we are sur- prised to find, employed so early as 1432-50, "he diede incontinentli." Incontinent= wanting in self- restraint, belongs to the same century. In various uses, independent and independence have great his- torical value. Sir E. Dering speaks in 1642 of " That new-borne Bastard, Independency," signify- ing, of course, what is now called Congregationalism. A good many writers might with advantage study index, if only for the sake of learning when, in the plural, to use indexes and when indices. Of indigo, frequently written in early times indico, and some- times endigo, an interesting and valuable history is given. Under indulgence, also, much curious his- torical information is supplied. Under intxpressire inexpressible Milton is mentioned, though the word he uses, as is stated, is unexpressive. This part of the dictionary furnishes, naturally, many words to which directly opposite meanings are attached. We once more congratulate Dr. Murray and his helpers and the world of scholarship on the progress that is made. Dr. Murray has now got into his full stride, and the advance is sustained. A man need no longer be young in order to hope to see the completed dictionary.
Dictionary of National Biography. Edited by Sidney Lee. Vol. LXII. Williamson Worden (Smith, Elder & Co.)
WITH the same exemplary and matchless punctu- ality that has previously been maintained the sixty-
