430 



NOTES AND QUERIES. 



[No. 292. 



minus the infusion of Arabic words, was a spoken 

 language in that country long before the Arabic 

 invasion. The Arabs, indeed, could not have in- 

 troduced it. It is an Indo-Teutonic language, 

 with no affinity to the so-called Semitic dialects. 

 Even so late as the age of Firdusi it was unmixed 

 with Arabic, which now affects only nouns and 

 phrases separated from the construction, but not 

 the grammatical forms or general syntax of the 

 language. This peculiar mixture, rather than 

 combination, of the two languages is extremely 

 well illustrated in the preface to Sir William 

 Jones's Grammar. 



In conclusion, I fully admit the ingenuity of 

 your correspondent's conjecture, but I think that, 

 on farther consideration, he will allow it to have 

 been too hasty. (See on the Zend, Pehlvi, and 

 Persian, Adelung's Mithridates, Band i. pp. 256 — 

 292.) 



Sir William Jardine {Naturalists Library, vol. ii. 

 p. 237.) considers the domestic cat to have been 

 introduced from Egypt into Greece and Italy, and 

 to have thence passed into other European lands. 

 It is curious that an animal so long known to the 

 Egyptians, and long an object of idolatrous vene- 

 ration among them, should not be mentioned in the 

 Hebrew Scriptures. E. C. H. 



goeton's "biographical dictionabt." 

 (Vol. X., p. 402.) 



M., with whom this work is a favourite, would 

 know if, in its latest and somewhat enlarged form 

 (H. G. Bohn, 4 vols. 8vo. 1850), it justifies his par- 

 tiality. In default of an answer nearer home, — and 

 for which he still seems to wait, — will he accept 

 one from a distant correspondent, who may claim, 

 he is sure, to have sifted these volumes as closely as 

 any one whom his request will reach ? He himself 

 would fain discover at what time the author was 

 taken away from their farther supervision. The 

 search for his death has hitherto been in vain. It 

 is odd enough that his own work should not pre- 

 serve his memorial ; the more, as his tenure of re- 

 putation does not rest upon this book alone. One 

 is not incurious also to know what other editorial 

 care than the publisher's the recent edition en- 

 joyed. It is plain, however, that the query could 

 get none but a negative answer. It must in faith- 

 fulness be said, that the signs of a hurried pre- 

 paration are unmistakeable. 



Of this charge, the proof might be made some- 

 what more convincing, if "N. & Q." purported 

 to be a critical journal, and it were consistent 

 with such limits as its form enforces to run out 

 an article into a review, with examples in point. 

 Some apology it might be for doing that in the 

 present case, that no notice of this Dictionary can 



be traced in any known review. It would assist 

 M.'s conclusions perhaps, with little trespass upon 

 my part beyond reasonable space, let me hope, to 

 subject the merits of the edition before us to the 

 test of a small geographic circle of survey, — to 

 wit, the Western World. Of a work of this na- 

 ture, the defects might be reducible (if to classify 

 at all were worth while) within the heads of posi- 

 tive omission, — space disproportioned, either way^ 

 to the subject of the article, — and inaccurate state- 

 ment or unjust appreciation. Unconcern about 

 giving authorities might be another item. Our 

 author, however, will stand this part of the ordeal ; 

 and there can be no room found to say a word 

 upon the third point specified. Let me return, 

 then, to the first point (but not designing any se- 

 riatim method, for brevity's sake) and ask — What 

 is to be said of a "Universal Biography," with 

 the fair promise on its title-page, brought down to 

 the present time, and at its foot " 1850," and to 

 which such names as Randolph, Dane, Wirt, 

 Marshall, Livingston, N. Webster, Jackson, Story, 

 Kent, R. H. Wilde, Wheaton, and J. Q. Adams, 

 — deceased in the interval between the two edi- 

 tions, — are all wanting? The list too, it will be 

 seen, is almost strictly confined to politics and law. 

 Is it worth while to pass from these men to search 

 and see with what substitutes the editor, if any 

 there were, sought to make amends to the reader 

 for their absence ? The totality of new American 

 names in the edition of 1850 is, according to my 

 jotting, fifteen,* and at some three or four of 

 these, an intelligent man among ourselves would 

 smile perforce. Their title to ever so few inches 

 of a Dictionary, say like Allen's, exclusively na- 

 tional, is a little uncertain. Yet the writer'^s 

 record, slowly and thoughtfully collected, of the 

 departed worthies since the date of Gorton's 

 second edition, that we call "our own," and 

 " shall not willingly let die," exceeds about eight 

 or nine times the London publisher's. 



True there are names now first added, of better 

 pretensions, — P. Henry, D. Clinton, Bowditch, 

 Channing, and AUston, — well worthy of all the 

 letter-press they have contrived to win. A small 

 word to say that, since the genius and gifts of the 

 last-named are imprisoned in eight lines. Think 

 not we impute this to national prejudice. A 

 stronger case of what was just now styled " dispro- 

 portion," flashes upon us from the other hemi- 

 sphere. Francis, Lord Jeffrey, Charles Fourier, 

 Mehemet Ali, and Daniel O'Connell, do not to- 

 gether make up the full complement of a Gortou 

 page, by the lack of more than twenty lines. Either 

 of the four had a just claim to the whole space, 

 three times told ; taking, as is but fair, the stan- 



* The American names complete, in the work as it 

 stood previously, are 90 exactly ; a third part perhaps of 

 the number it should have embraced. 



