Page:The American Cyclopædia (1879) Volume VI.djvu/102

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DICTIONARY are the German scholars Scheller, Freund, and Georges. The work of Forcellini was the ba- sis of the Latin-English dictionary of F. P. Lev- erett (Boston, 1836) ; and that of Freund, of the Latin-English lexicon of E. A. Andrews (New York, 1856). Many smaller lexicons have also been prepared for educational pur- poses, but nearly all are entirely formed from the material of the larger works. The first modern Greek-Latin dictionary was that of Giovanni Crastoni of Piacenza (Milan, 1480; printed also by Aldus, 1497), which was for many years the only lexicographic aid for the student of Greek. Robert Constantine pub- lished at Basel, in 1562, a thesaurus of the Greek language, in which he had the assistance of Gesner, Turnebus, Camerarius, and other learned contemporaries. It was superseded by the Thesaurus Graces Linguae of Henry Ste- phens (Paris, 1572), the result of 12 years' la- bor, which has hardly been surpassed in the comprehensive and copious interpretation of words. Its arrangement is not in the alpha- betical order of words but of roots, the deriva- tives and compounds being collected after each root. It was the basis of the works of Scapula and Schrevelius. The most thorough subse- quent Greek lexicons are the German works of Schneider, Passow, Seiler, Rost, and Pape. The work of Passow was the basis of the Greek- English lexicon of Liddell and Scott (Oxford, 1845; New York, edited by Henry Drisler, 1848; large 4to ed., London, 1870). The Greek language was long studied through the medium of the Latin, and no Greek-English lexicon was projected until the present century. The first of these that was announced was that of John Pickering (Boston, 1826, much en- larged in 1829, and subsequently in 1846), which was partially executed in 1814. It was preceded in publication only by the similar English work of John Jones (1823) ; that of Donnegan, an abridged translation from the German of Schneider, appeared in 1827. The first standard dictionaries of modern languages were produced under the patronage of learned academies. The oldest was the Italian Voca- bulario della Crusca, first published in 1612, which was avowedly founded on Tuscan prin- ciples, made the 14th century the Augustan period of the language, and slighted the great writers of the 16th ; an enlarged edition of this work (Florence, 1729-'38) still forms the high- est authority for the Italian language. In Spain the lexicon of Lebrixa (1492) and the Tesoro of Oovarrubias (1611) were the only dictionaries of note till the new academy produced its great work (6 vols., Madrid, 1726-'39), an abridg- ment of which was immediately prepared (5th revised ed., 1817). Though German lexicog- raphy begins with Ilrabanus Maurus, a contem- porary ,,f Charlemagne, the first noteworthy German lexicon was Die Teutsch Spracli of Maaler (Zurich, 1561), and the first learned and critical work of the kind was Frisch's Deutsch- iitiinisclcs Wurterluch (Berlin, 1741). All others have been superseded successively by the work of Adelung (Leipsic, 1774-'81), and that of the brothers Grimm (Leipsic, begun in 1852.) The dictionary of the French acad- emy was published in 1694, and adopted the alphabetical order in its 2d edition in 1718. The 6th edition was issued in 1835. A 7th edition, much improved, to be completed in 2 vols. 4to, is now (1874) in progress, and will probably be finished in 1876. M. Patin is the chief editor ; MM. de Sacy, Sandeau, C. Doucet, and Mignet are associated with him. L. N. Bescherelle's excellent dictionary of the French language, in 2 vols. 4to, appeared in 1843-' 6. The large and important dic- tionary of M. E. Littre" (4 vols. 4to, 1863- '73) is remarkably full, and has taken its place among the highest authorities. The object of the first lexicographical labors in England was to facilitate the study of the Latin language, and bilingual dictionaries had become common while those designed for merely English read- ers were rare and meagre productions. Proba- bly the earliest of the latter was that of Dr. John Bullokar, entitled "The English Ex- positour " (London, 1616), explaining, as was announced on the title page, 5,080 of what were esteemed the "hardest words;" it passed through many editions. Subsequent works were the " Glossographia, or Dictionary of Hard Words," by Thomas Blount (London, 1656) ; the "New World of English Words," by Edward Phillips, the nephew and pupil of Milton (1658); and the "Universal Etymo- logical English Dictionary," by Nathan Bailej (London, 1726), in which the first attempt was made to give a complete collection of the words of the language, and which was long in the ' highest repute. An interleaved copy of a folio edition of Bailey's dictionary was the repository of the articles collected by Dr. Johnson in pre- paring his dictionary. The work of Johnson, after eight years of arduous labor, appeared in 1755, and has exerted an influence superior to any other in fixing the external form of the language and settling the meaning of words. He first introduced into English lexicogra- phy the plan of illustrating the various signi- fications of words by examples extracted from the best authors. It was much enlarged by Todd in the editions of 1814 and 1827, and has been the basis of many smaller works. The most important subsequent dictionaries are those of Smart, Richardson, Webster, and Worcester. Smart's dictionary, which Dr. Webster calls " most excellent," was pub- lished in 1836, at London. Richardson's " New Dictionary of the English Language" (2 vols. 4to, London, 1835-'7) is an elaborate work, especially valuable to the student of the history of the language. Its arrangement is in the alphabetical order of the primitives, beneath each of which its derivatives are grouped. Noah Webster was engaged 36 years on his " American Dictionary of the Eng- lish Language," the first edition of which was