Vol. 1.— No. 51. 



AND GARDENER'S JOURNAL. 



FOR THE GENESEE PARMER. 



WEBS rER'S DIC HONARY. 

 I had just purchased Webster's American Dic- 

 abriSged, price six dollars, when 1 took 

 up a newspaper which referred to some strictures 

 on this work, made separately by A. B. Johnson 

 ami Lyman Cobb. The latter, who is well known 

 as the author ofaspelling hook, directed the weight 

 of his objections against Webster's orthography ; 

 and the former, against the introduction of so ma- 

 ny words which are not found in Johnson's Dic- 

 tionary,— insisting that oneot Dr. Johnson's g v i 

 objects was to exclude all unnecessary and imp: op- 

 er words, and bj so doing to render our language 

 more classical and pure. 



I laid down the newspaper,— feltthaX I hod be. n 

 too hasty in making the purchase, — and wished 

 that the Dictionary was again on the booksellers 

 shelf, and th 1 1 the six dollars were safe in my pock- 

 et-book. It was too late, however ; and I brought 

 my bargain home, endeavoring to encourage my- 

 self with the hope that the definitions, which 

 must be better adapted to the oresent state of the 

 language than those of former lexicographers, 

 ..tone in some measure for the barbarisms. 

 On reaching home, 1 was presented, from a 

 scrap book, with the following article : " Orlhu- 

 "raphy. A writer in the Cattskiil Recorder has 

 been at considerable pains to make up the follow 

 ing paragraph, to exhibit Mr. Webster's style of 

 s pelling. ° lie states it to he in strict accordance 

 with trTe spelling of the aoAKTO^.J edition : 



" The suteran remedy for unpopularity is to 

 Hoke your own errors ; and if you procede steddy, 

 and inlist the admirers of pretense you may make 

 even a nusance tolerable. A traveller when he 

 . ishes to succede with the ignorant, makes his 

 lung fly like a j ether, aad an encyclopedy is like a 

 7 tin of twist to him. He will tell you that in 

 his last cruse, he came near a catastrophy from 

 a, Turkish cutlas ; that he has killed ranedcer in 



Nova Zembla ; that he saw a chtmist in 



' n Holland who could cure the toothake by the 

 touch of his thum ; that the highth of the moun- 

 tains in Switzerland set his head aking by looking 

 at them from a clif in r ranee ; that the Turk 

 lead their horses by artAmwhent'icygotoamosi; 

 and that the bridgegroom is fastened to his bride 

 by a thong of lether in certain other countries. He 

 will praise the Chinese tarif, and compare the 

 mandarin to our skerif. He will let out such a 

 sluse of words upon you as to ienitmyour senses. 

 His clack is like a plow that overturns all your at- 

 tempts to reply, and you can get no furlow from 

 his service ; even if you have tire hcadakc to kill, 

 not a crum of comfort can you get from him" 



This was bad enough; but the Irish say, "Fair 

 play is a jewel," and I determined to examine for 

 myself. On turning to the Dictionary, I found 

 those objectionable words arranged in the octa- 

 voJpl edition as follows : 



sovereign ) proceed * steady > nuisance } succeed 

 suveran ) procede ) steddy J nusance J succede 

 feather ) catastrophe ) chimist ) thumb ) ribbon 

 fcther ) catastrophy J chemist J thum $ ribin 



highth f mosk ( leather ) tariff 



he circumstances is therefore, an unfair witness »' 

 unless indeed, the arrangement and orthography 

 of these words, differ in the quarto edition, which 

 is not now before me. It must be remarked how- 

 ever that Webster prefers both " mosque" and 

 chemical" to the other forms of these words with 

 which he has been charged. 



It is also to be noticed that Webster has not 

 been betrayed into the proposed alterations,* by a 

 desire to write these words as they are pronounc- 

 ed, and thus destroy all the etymological land- 

 marks of the language, — but to correct those de- 

 partures from the true spellingofthe primitive words 

 which were made in more modern but barbarous 

 ages, when every pedant was ambitious to fortify 

 his writing by a redundancy of letters. Many in- 

 stances of this kind might be given in addition to 

 the words already introduced ; but perhaps none 

 is more remarkable than the old spelling of wood- 

 ruff, woodde-rowffc, or the modern spelling of 

 ' tongue.' The following etymologies are from 

 the Dictionary under review : 



procede from the Latin procedo 



steddy - Saxon stedig 



pretense - Latin prajtensus — gjf Within 

 the last century cxpence has been changed to ex- 

 pense, from the Latin expensum. 



succede from the Latin succedo 



• also 



flight 



mosque 



i leather ) 

 ue ) lether ) 



tarif 



Iicight 



hight 



highth 



sheriff I benum, corruptly ) plough 



sherif $ benumb $ plow 



In the above eases, the alteration proposed is 

 modestly placed below the word as it is commonly 

 spelled, and occurs in no other place, so that no in- 

 convenience can accrue to the reader. Yet we are 

 not told that this position of a word always marks 

 his preference, and it is likely that plow is one ex- 

 ception. 



inlist f i™n, „•„„„ „„„.„ ( „i„ skain, Webster t 

 enlist J both given separately ^ ^^ J 



reindeer ) and ranedcer ) pretense, Webster ) 

 ranedeer $ separately $ pretence, Walker ) 

 cutlas, Webster ) cruse is not found ) clif is not 

 cutlass, Walker J in that sense. J found, 

 encyclopedia or } sluice ) occurs ) furlough } ocr 



encyclopedy $ sluse ) twice ) furlow J tw 

 crum, Webster } tongue ) tung also occurs ) 

 .rum \ WalkcT >tung $ separately. $ 

 crumb $ ' ) ake is preferred to ache but 



lOthake is not found. 



The Cattskiil writer by suppressing a part of 



tarif - French tarif 



sluse - Danish sluse 



tung - Saxon ti ig 



fether — Saxon fether 

 skain - French eseaigne 



cutlas — French coutelas 



thum - Saxon thuma 



ribin - Welsh rhibin 



lether - Saxon lether 



iienum - Saxon benumen 

 crum - Saxon cruma 



Numerous as arc the wordst which this Diction- 

 ary contains, I observe some omissions which 

 ouoditto be supplied. For oviposilion and ovipos 

 iling I give Say, and Kirbv and Spence as au- 

 thorities; and for spathose Phillips and Cleave- 

 land — but I have had little time to search for o- 

 missions. 



Massacer has been proposed instead of Massa 

 ere. I dislike this innovation, and every other 

 that requires c followed by e to sound like k. Cy- 

 anite pronounced kyanite, is a modern barbarism, 

 however, which Webster has not followed. 



The best thing I can say of the claim preferred 

 by A. B. Johnson in favor of his namesake, is that 

 it is singular. From a Dictionary we want th 

 definitions of such words as are used, whether 

 classical or not ; and that author who would refer 

 to Johnson's Dictionary rather than to the Ram 

 bier or Idler to learn whether a word might be ad- 

 mitted into elegant composition, had better burn 

 his pen and spill his ink. Some of the vilest writ- 

 ings of the present day may be found word by 

 word in Johnson's Dictionary ; and in it may also 

 be found several words which no gcntlemanv/o\u<i 

 dare to use in the company of gentlemen. 



Jn the whole I am well pleased with Webster's 

 (and Worcester's) Dictionary, and am fully and 

 entirely satisfied that my six dollars were well laid 

 out. Yet 1 am not prejudiced in favor of Noah 

 Webster. He has shown a want of taste in in 

 traducing his strictures on the late Lindley Mur- 

 rayinto hisquar to edition, and as the charges are ut 

 terly unfounded, I regret that so enduring a record 

 of them has been made. Apart from suchsniallmat 

 ters however, Noah Webster is a great man ; and 

 he will be known to posterity as a bright ornament 

 of his age and country. A FARMER 



* With some exceptions such us nusance from 

 tlit Freuch nuisance, pictoresk from the French pittores 

 que, &c 



t About sixteen thousand more tlmn in any other. It al 

 60 contains between thirty and forty thousand defmi 

 tions not found in any similar work. One example o 

 the nature of these may be given : " Mill- An engine 

 or fabhefr in which com is ground, or an;' other body 

 is comminuted." Walker's Dictionary. It will be per 

 ceived that this de6nition (taken from Johnson,) is very 

 imperfect, for it will not include asaw-mill, elittiDgmill 

 a hemp mill, a fulling mill, and sevoral others. Webster 

 gives the following; " Mill. 1. A complicare.f engineor 

 machine for grinding aDd reducing to fine particles, 

 grain, fruit, or other substance, or for performing ether 



operations by means of wheels and a circular motion 



2. The houseorbuildingthatcontainsthemachinervfor 

 grinding, &c. 



FOR THE GENESEE PARMER. 



THE MILITIA. 



Mr. Editor — I have noticed several elaborate: 

 attempts by a writer in your paper, to induce ;■ 

 belief, that the abolition of our Militia System, is 

 necessary and proper His theory andargum 

 are plausible; but facts, stubborn facts, are worth 

 all the theories in the Universe. The histoi y of 

 all nations, and especially of Republics, prove. 

 that whenever the great body of the people have 

 ever considered it too burthensome to cultivate 

 military discipline, keep arms in their hands, and 

 know how to use them, their liberties have soon 

 been lost. 



The Greeks and Romans were convinced by 

 their demagogues, that it was an unnecessary 

 waste of time, and too toilsome to go on with the 

 martial exercises of their ancestors ; and the con- 

 sequence has been, that the Greeks have groaned 

 under the bondage of the Turks for four hundred 

 years, and the other were overrun and nearly ex- 

 terminated by hordes of barbarians. 



It is easy to convince the unreflecting in time 

 of peace, that no danger is near, and that it is 

 unnecessary to guard against anarchy, insurrec- 

 tions, usurpation, or foreign aggression. So, in 

 those ancient republics, danger from those sources 

 in the heighth of their prosperity appeared more 

 remote than it now does to us ; yet the false theo- 

 ries of sophists and religious enthusiasts were 

 not listened to, till centuries after the establish- 

 ment of those Republics. But here, in about half 

 century since the foundation of our Republic, 

 we find men, who from their language and wri- 

 tings ought to know better, endeavoring to per- 

 suade the people to lay aside their arms, or what 

 is the same thing, render our Militia system less 

 efficient than what it now is. 



Officers of experience, of from twenty to thirty 

 years, who met at the military convention at Uti- 

 ca, last winter, allege that any less service than 

 now exists, would prove the utter destruction of 

 the militia system. Yet we see daily attempts 

 in the papers, to induce a more lax system than 

 the present, and to convince us that all that 

 is necessary is to have arms, and that company 

 and regimental trainings are useless. It is easy 

 to cut down a valuable fruit tree that our ances 

 tors have planted for us, but it may take an age 

 to substitute, rear and bring to maturity one as 

 ;ood in its place. It ' is easier to extin- 

 guish a martial spirit and habits, than to excite 

 them after they are abandoned. Look at the mis- 

 erable, degenerate Italians, and the poor, oppress- 

 ed, ignorant, and distracted state of the Greeks, 

 and we may well sigh, "How are the mighty 

 fallen ! !" No considerate man, who views their 

 condition, and has any regard for the future char- 

 acter and condition of his country, would be wil- 

 ling to intermit any precaution, nor begrudge two 

 days' service for a fewyears, in keeping up a mil- 

 itary spirit and organization among the people. 

 Break down this system, and in a few years you 

 must have a large standing army to support, and 

 the expense to each man would be greater, than to 

 take his present term of duty. To most who per- 

 form it, the duties of a citizen soldier are not con 

 sidered burthensome ; — they are considered as 

 manly recreations from labor, and the ordinary 

 business of life. And as the people must have 

 some amusements, public meetings and military 

 exercises and displays, are assuredly more reptib 



