Butler—The Vocabulary of Shakespeare. 
43 
ning the words Hew English Dictionary. H-E-D is preferred 
by Dr. Murray who has been the chief editor from, the out¬ 
set,—and accordingly H-E-D is the name I shall use in the 
present writing, and it is because I must iterate and reiterate 
that word so often that this prefatory note was necessary. 
Murray insists on the word New because he claims that his 
work is absolutely new—old things are passed away and all 
things are made new. 
An idea, or it may be a phantasy possesses me that Shakes¬ 
peare who has so inimitably portrayed characters, began from a 
child to distinguish them, and soon became aware that he could 
see through his fellows while their eyes only beheld his outer 
man. He was a clairvoyant of souls while Rontgen rays are 
content to pierce bodies and that darkly. His inward light, 
however, could not shine forth unless set free by outward aux¬ 
iliaries. It was hemmed in like Ariel pegged in the knotty en¬ 
trails of the oak. Words, or something like them, were help¬ 
ful to his own character-studies, and they were indispensable 
whenever he would make known what he knew. Messengers vo¬ 
cal or written must tell others what his mind’s eye, his only, 
could detect. The speech of each speaker was this speaker’s 
counterpart or double and so that each seemed made for the 
other. Words held a character as a carpenter’s vise holds a 
block of wood while the youngling player surveyed and fash¬ 
ioned it at his pleasure. 
Holing characteristic utterances only for the satisfaction of 
his owm thought—no further harm,—would grow into a child¬ 
ish indulgence and custom. Then when among his fellows, lit¬ 
tle boys and girls, he was called on for a story that “storied” in¬ 
dividual who was made by the teller to paint himself most 
deftly in his own natural terms was sure to be the favorite. 
This and that; turn of his syllables, was declared to be just like 
him. The more he abounded in such clear-cut portraits the 
more, like Walter Scott, was he the ringleader of juveniles who 
did converse and waste their time together. Hor did future 
metropolitan homage steal over him, with such a, peace above 
all dignities as had been his lullaby after the juvenile overflow 
of clamors and kisses on their idol. 
