266 ROMANCE LANGUAGES 



were ranged respectively the words found in only one of the three 

 groups. The intended method of consulting the dictionary would 

 appear almost ludicrous were it not so cumbrous and exasperating, 

 for in view of the provokingly slow and difficult process of finding 

 what was wanted, the balked and baffled inquirer might well have 

 been reminded, in his extremity, of the famous culinary recipe for 

 preparing jugged hare, which begins, "First catch your hare." In- 

 deed, "First catch your word," might appropriately have been the 

 motto on the title-page of this indispensable thesaurus. 



The mode of procedure was as follows: For any Romance word 

 the etymology of which was to be sought, the inquirer must first 

 determine, if possible, the etymological equivalent, in Italian, 

 because the Italian form was the one given preference in the alpha- 

 betical arrangement. In case, however, there were no Italian equi- 

 valent, the word might perhaps be found ranged under its own 

 proper form. This recourse failing, the word in question must be 

 sought in the second volume, under the group to which it belonged; 

 if, for example, it chanced to be Roumanian, it was to be looked for 

 in the Italian group; if it were Provencal, in the French group; if 

 Portuguese, in the Spanish group. If at this point the quest again 

 failed, recourse was to be had to a very meagre index of words 

 treated out of their alphabetical order in the body of the work. Not 

 until all these resources had failed was the unsophisticated seeker 

 brought face to face with the etymological dilemma which inevitably 

 forced him to determine, as to him seemed best, to which of the two 

 great classes of words systematically omitted by Diez the missing 

 vocable belonged, whether to the class of words accounted by 

 Diez, in his etymological wisdom, to be of altogether obvious etymo- 

 logy and hence not worth the trouble of elucidation, or on the 

 other hand to that very different class of words whose etymology 

 was unknown to Diez, and which were accordingly incapable of 

 elucidation. And even so the luckless wight was still left in uncer- 

 tainty whether the object of his quest was not after all treated by 

 Diez, because the great dictionary was well known to contain, hidden 

 in one or another of its many out-of-the-way corners, a generous 

 store of etymologies that defied all the succession of appliances so 

 uningeniously devised for their discovery. As successive editions of 

 the work were called for, Diez was naturally expostulated with as to 

 the disposition of its material, but to no avail. And it was not until 

 a despairing admirer, Jarnik of Prague, produced in a separate 

 volume, and under a single alphabet, an absolutely complete index 

 to the Etymologisches Worterbuch, that the incomparable wealth of 

 this great monument was placed adequately at the disposal of 

 scholars. 



Only a few years later the true and final solution of the question 



