]830.] 



Domestic and Foreign. 



231 



afloat, he is bound to obey, with contempt, 

 and the lady herself with insolence. She 

 seems at his mercy, and he uses his advan- 

 tage tyrannically : and taking every oppor- 

 tunity of insinuating to his captain that 

 his cousin actually returns his attachment, 

 gradually excites some distrust of the lady. 

 By and by, the anticipated discovery of the 

 young hero's birth takes place he proves 

 to be the son of the noble admiral, who had 

 so long patronized him, and who had re- 

 cently fallen in the arms of victory. Not a 

 moment does he lose in despatching a letter 

 to the charming object of his affections, whom 

 he has loved from her birth, offering his 

 title and fortunes ; but this letter his insidi- 

 ous and unprincipled rival intercepts, and 

 an answer is received by the young lord, 

 apparently in her own hand-writing, reject- 

 ing his offers, and avowing her attachment 

 to her cousin. This event is a prelude to 

 a long course of misapprehension and mys- 

 tery, in the tantalyzing style, very well 

 imagined, but which is, of course, finally 

 cleared up the traitor is caught in his own 

 toils the lovers come to a right understand- 

 ing, and first love triumphs. 



Dictionary of the English Language, by 

 N. Webster, L.L.D., Parts I. and II. 

 Dr. Johnson, and several of his successors 

 did not muster 40,000 words ; and even Mr. 

 Todd, with all the good-will in the world, 

 could not scrape together so many as 60,000, 

 while Dr. Webster has brought up the swel- 

 ling number to full 70,000, by a process, to 

 be sure, by which a round 100,000 could 

 readily be effected. The aim of every suc- 

 cessive labourer in these fields, is to enlarge 

 the stock not one of them thinks of reduc- 

 ing within more legitimate limits, though 

 we are quite satisfied there is ample room 

 for very considerable reduction. Multitudes 

 of words are admitted on all hands, that do 

 not deserve admission, or any notice of any 

 kind, from any general usage of them at any 

 period. Dr. Webster flogs all his predeces- 

 sors in this respect. No sooner does he catch 

 any body actually printing a new word, but 

 he sweeps it without farther inquiry into his 

 omnium gatherum. Surely there could be 

 no real occasion for introducing Arkites, 

 expressive of Noah and his sons, merely 

 because Mr. Bryant, in a pedantic spirit, 

 chose to manufacture the term nor Appoin- 

 tees, for no better reason than because the 

 Massachusetts' representatives once used it 

 in a circular nor Atimy (with an accent in 

 the antepenult too), because Mr. Mitford, 

 no great authority, surely, in verbal matters, 

 gave the 0,71^10. of the Greeks, or English 

 termination nor Archbotcher, because Cor- 

 bet botched up the word ironically. How for- 

 tunate, by the way, it is, the slang dictionary 

 escaped Dr. Webster's researches. If we 

 call Dr. W. an arch-verbalist, he will snap 

 up the ' word' for his next edition, and 

 therefore we will not throw temptation in 

 his way. 



Between a dictionary of the English 

 language, and an Encyclopaedia, too, there 

 are more limits than seem to have occurred 

 to Dr. W. We find the Latin terms for 

 the genera of plants and animals, and also 

 of some species, for the admission of which 

 there can be but the one excuse or necessity 

 of swelling the lists. He has ransacked 

 Rees's Cyclopaedia, and poured into his 

 own reservoir a torrent of ecclesiastical and 

 theological distinctions, for which no person 

 upon earth can have the least occasion, or 

 would ever dream of looking for them in a 

 dictionary of the f English language.' An- 

 tosiandrian what is this ? An opponent 

 of one Osiander's doctrines. Artotyrites 

 and this ? Some heretics, who chose to 

 celebrate the Eucharist with bread and 

 cheese, (as the learned will opine), instead 

 of bread and wine. Words, again, are con- 

 tinually occurring, quite un-English, and 

 which nobody could expect to find in such 

 a publication, and of course would never 

 refer for them accompanied, too, with de- 

 finitions so bald or so defective, as to make 

 them perfectly useless : for instance, " Aver- 

 nat, a sort of grape" (( Atche, a small silver 

 coin in Turkey, value six or seven mills." 

 If the term is to be introduced, why not 

 give the English value ? " Balloon or bal- 

 loen, a state barge of Siam, made of a single 

 piece of timber, very long, and managed 

 with oars" think of this, in a dictionary 

 of the English language ! And truly we 

 as little see the necessity for such terms as 

 Aquitanian, Arauncanian, Acroceraunian, 

 &c. as well might we look for an adjective 

 term of every spot that has a name upon the 

 globe. 



Dr. W's friends laud to the skies the 

 accuracy and research of his etymologies, 

 and he is plainly entitled to considerable 

 credit. We observe Baptize comes from 

 ^OWTU;, to baptize, which is as useful as it 

 is learned. Backgammon is, very ade- 

 quately for the occasion, described by Dr. 

 Johnson, as a game with dice and tables ; 

 but Dr. W. is, we suppose, thought to have 

 improved upon it thus " a game played 

 by two persons, upon a table, with box and 

 dice. The table is in two parts, on which 

 are twenty-four black and white spaces, 

 called points. Each player has fifteen men, 

 of different colours, for the purpose of dis- 

 tinction." 



The doctor challenges comparison, in 

 point of definition, by appealing to a list 

 of words. We glanced at the first three or 

 four acceptance, we find illustrated by the 

 phrase, which we suppose must be Ameri- 

 can, " work done to acceptance." To 

 acquire, is very well distinguished from 

 gaining, obtaining, procuring; but who, 

 out of America, ever heard of " obtaining a 

 book on loan" ? To adjourn, is " used for 

 the act of closing the session of a publiq 

 body as the court adjourned without day" 

 which must be exclusively American. 



On the affinity of languages, Adelung is 



