The '^'Atto.^ Aeyo/j-eua in Shahspere. 161 



THE ''ATtaq Asr6fj.eua IN SHAKSPERE. 



Omnia rara prcedara; ipsa raritate rariora. 



Bt James Davie Butlek, LL. D. 



When we examine the vocabulary of Shakspere what first 

 strikes us is its copiousness. His characters are countless, and 

 each one speaks his own dialect. His little fishes never talk like 

 whales, nor do his whales talk like little fishes. This impression 

 of mine grows stronger when I read in the Encyclopedia Britannica ; 

 " the language assigned to each character is made suitable to it, 

 and to no oiher, and this with a truth and naturalness which the 

 readers and spectators of every following age have recognized.'' 

 Those curious in such matters have espied in his works quota- 

 tions from seven foreign tongues, and those from Latin alone 

 amount to one hundred and thirty-two. 



Our first impression that the Shaksperian variety of words is 

 multitudinous is confirmed by statistirs. The titles in Mrs. 

 Cowden Clarke's Shaksperian Concordance, counted one by one 

 by a friend have been ascertained to be more than twenty-four 

 thousand. The total vocabulary of Milton's poetical remains is 

 more nearly seventeen than eighteen thousand (L7,S77) ; and that 

 of Homer including the hymns as well as both Iliad and Odys- 

 sey is scarcely nine thousand. Five thousand eight hundred and 

 sixty words exhaust the vocabulary of Dante's Divina Commedia. 

 In the English Bible the different words are reckoned by Mr. Gr. 

 P. Marsh m his lectures on the English language, at rather fewer 

 than six thousand. Renati's estimate is 5,642. The number of 

 titles, however, in Cruden's Concordance has been found to be 

 greater by more than a thousand, namely 7,209. Those in Rob- 

 inson's lexicon of the Greek Testament I have learned by actual 

 count to be ab~>ut five thousand five hundred. 



Some Grerman writers on Greek grammar believe they could 



teach Plato and Demosthenes useful lessons concerning Greek 



moods and tenses, even as the ancient Athenians, according to 



the fable of Phae^rus, undertook to prove that a pig did not 



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