196 



DISCOVEHY 



with the appointment, by the Philological Society in 

 London, of a committee for the collection of words 

 unregistered in existing dictionaries. Dr. Trench, 

 then Dean of Westminster, read before the Society 

 two papers in which, " while speaking with much 

 appreciation of the labours of Dr. Johnson and his 

 successors, he declared that these labours yet fell far 

 short of giving us the ideal English Dictionary. Es- 

 pecially, he pointed out that for the history of words 

 and families of words, and for the changes of form and 

 sense which words had historically passed through, 

 they gave hardly any help whatever. No one could 

 find out from all the dictionaries extant how long any 

 particular word had been in the language, which of 

 the many senses in which many words were used was 

 the original, or how or when these many senses had 

 been developed ; nor, in the case of words described 

 as obsolete, were we told wketi they became obsolete or 

 by whom they were last used. He pointed out also 

 that the obsolete and the rarer words of the language 

 had never been completely collected ; that thousands 

 of words current in the literature of the past three 

 centuries had escaped the diligence of Johnson and aU 

 his supplcmenters ; that, indeed, the collection of the 

 requisite material for a complete dictionary could not 

 be compassed by any one man, however long-lived 

 and however diligent, but must be the work of many 

 collaborators who would undertake systematically to 

 read and to extract English literature. He called 

 upon the Philological Society, therefore, as the only 

 body in England then interesting itself in the language, 

 to imdertake the collection of materials to complete 

 the work already done by Bailey, Johnson, Todd, 

 Webster, Richardson, and others, and to prepare a 

 supplement to all the dictionaries, which should 

 register aU omitted words and senses, and supply all 

 the historical information in which these works were 

 lacking, and, above all, should give quotations illus- 

 trating the first and last appearance, and eVery notable 

 point in the life-history of every word." 



***** 

 The collection of materials for the supplement was 

 at once begun by the Committee and seventy-six 

 volunteers, but it soon became apparent that the 

 projected supplement would be greater than all the 

 existing dictionaries. Accordingly plans were dis- 

 cussed for a New English Dictionary, and Mr. Herbert 

 Coleridge was appointed editor. Under his direction 

 rules were issued for the guidance of volunteer readers, 

 some hundreds of books were read or undertaken to be 

 read, and the editor himself published his Glossarial 

 Index to the printed literature of the thirteenth 

 century. He had prepared lists of words from A to 

 D, and had put into type specimen pages containing 

 articles upon some early words, shortly before his 



lamented death, in 1861. He had calculated that, 

 when he had one hundred thousand illustrative quota- 

 tions in his pigeon-holes, it would be time to begin 

 making the Dictionary. 



« * * * « 



Dr. FumivaU, who was next appointed editor, 

 " realised much more fully the immensity of the work." 

 He pressed on the collection of quotations, divided the 

 letters of the alphabet among volunteer sub-editors, 

 each of whom, it was hoped, would arrange the quota- 

 tions supplied of words beginning with the letter 

 entrusted to him, classify the different senses of each 

 w'ord, and so leave to the editor only the final redaction 

 of the articles. And, becoming conscious of the great 

 bulk of our early literature which had not been printed, 

 or had been very imperfectly printed, Fumivall founded 

 in 1864 the Early English Text Society, which from 

 that time until now has been engaged in the accurate 

 reproduction of those early writings without which no 

 historical knowledge of English language and literature 

 is possible. 



***** 



The work thus begun was continued for many years, 

 but could not be brought to completion. The ma- 

 terials accumulated as more books were read, but 

 experience showed that it was impossible for volunteer 

 workers to bring them into a single plan : in the 

 absence of an editor and a staff giving their whole time 

 to the work, gaps in the material could not be discovered 

 or filled, and an attempt made by Furni\all to construct 

 a Concise Dictionary, which should show what had 

 been done and what remained to do, broke down after 

 many years of effort. The first enthusiasm of the 

 workers waned when it was found that printing was so 

 far distant ; the London and American publishers 

 who were consulted were unable to undertake a work 

 of the magnitude which it was clear would be necessary, 

 and the whole undertaking languished. 



***** 



The collections w'hich had been made were too 

 \aluable to be abandoned, and in 1878 it was suggested 

 that the Philological Society should in\ite the co- 

 operation of the Clarendon Press. Negotiations be- 

 tween the Society, the Press, and Dr. Murray, who 

 was by common consent designated as the editor, were 

 entered into, and agreements were drawn up which 

 were finally settled early in 1879. Even at this time 

 the immensity of the work was not fully realised. The 

 Dictionary, it was thought, " would occupy not less 

 than 6,000 and not more than 7,000 pages," and it 

 could be completed, it was assumed, in ton years by 

 a single editor, with a small staff. But when Dr. 

 Murray, in 1879, began his work, " careful examination 

 of the quotations, then for the first time collected in 

 one place and arranged in a continuous alphabetical 



