302 A few remarks on tlie third edition of [No. 4. 



in that of the Greek. In the first place, as to the verbal elements 

 of the latter language, the line has been clearly defined which 

 demarcates what is classical, or legitimately developed, from what 

 is inadmissible ; chronology being, for the most part, the criterion. 

 Experience, moreover, has shown it to be practicable to embrace, 

 within a reasonable compass, all the complex terms that occur in 

 extant Greek authors : and the accession of such terms, from works 

 likely still to be discovered, is contemplated without apprehension. 

 But the case is found to be very different indeed, when we turn to 

 the Sanskrit. Eor who, here, is not classical, or, at least, is not of 

 weight for his words ? The next century may solve the problem ; 

 but our own — for which Dr. Goldstiicker is working — will not. We 

 propose this consideration with a definite object. Let it be pre- 

 sumed that, by and bye, accidental critics will concur in distinguish- 

 ing certain compositions, say to the number of two hundred, as 

 possessed of the characteristic of classicality. Yet, even in these 

 circumstances, we should scarcely expect a lexicographer, after well 

 weighing his functions, to go about to accumulate all the words 

 occurring in them, of the sort to which we refer. Still more 

 unfeasible, and equally supererogatory, would it be, if the entire 

 body of Sanskrit literature were ever thought deserving of lexical 

 treatment, to attempt a complete collection, from it, of vocables of 

 this description. No twenty folios might avail to exhaust them. 

 The assertion is not to be questioned, that the ancient Hindus 

 invented compounds at will ; and such, to this day, is the practice 

 of the pandits. No such terms, to our thinking, should ever have 

 place in a dictionary, unless they are technicalities, or unless their 

 acceptation is not at once to be gathered from their factors ; the 

 knowledge of one or two facts of Hinduism, and a moderate acquaint- 

 ance with the grammar, always being postulated in the inspector.* 



* Dr. Trench has spoken boldly, but wisely, on the subject of bettering our 

 English Dictionaries ; and one most important respect in which they are capable 

 of melioration is, as he urges, in the way of retrenchment. On the point of the 

 claim of compounds to be inserted in our dictionaries, he holds the following 

 language : " When words have been brought into close connexion with one 

 another, not in the choice or caprice of one writer, and on a single occasion or 



