The Southern Literary Messenger, Vol. II., No. 9, August, 1836Various
History
The Southern Literary Messenger, Vol. II., No. 9, August, 1836
Various
American literature -- 19th century -- Periodicals
We quote these passages merely as specimens of the singular
simplicity—more properly _naiveté_—which is the prevailing feature of
the book.
Mr. Dewey left New York for England on the 8th June 1833, and arrived
in St. George's channel _on the 24th of the same month_, having a fair
wind and smooth sea during the entire passage. Leaving England, he
visited Wales, Ireland, Scotland, France, Belgium, Prussia,
Switzerland, and Italy. Returning by way of Liverpool, he reached home
on the 22d of May, 1834.
RICHARDSON'S DICTIONARY.
_A New Dictionary of the English Language: By Charles Richardson.
London: William Pickering—New York: William Jackson._
The _periodical_ nature of this publication absolves us from what
would otherwise be a just charge of neglect in not speaking of it
sooner. Five numbers have been issued, and twenty-five more are to be
added, at intervals of a fortnight. These numbers are of quarto form,
and contain eighty pages in triple columns. The paper is excellent,
and the matter beautifully stereotyped. The whole will form, when the
publication is completed, two very large quarto volumes, of which the
entire cost will have been fifteen dollars. We say when the
publication is completed—the work itself is already so—a consideration
of great importance, and sure to be appreciated by the thousands of
subscribers to the many costly periodicals which have failed in
completing their issue, and thus thrown a number of odd volumes upon
the hands of the public. In what farther we have to say of this
Dictionary, we shall do little more than paraphrase the very
satisfactory prospectus of Mr. Richardson himself.
When Dr. Johnson, in 1747, announced his intention of writing a
Dictionary of the English language, he communicated the _plan_ of his
undertaking in a letter to Lord Chesterfield. The plan was as follows.
He would give, first—the natural and primitive meaning of words;
secondly, the consequential—and thirdly the metaphorical, arranging
the quotations chronologically. The book, however, was published in
1755, _without the plan_, and strange to say, in utter disregard of
the principles avowed in the letter to the Earl of Chesterfield. That
these principles were well-conceived, and that if followed out, they
would have rendered important service to English lexicography, was not
doubted at the time, and cannot be doubted now. Moreover, the
necessity for something of the kind which was felt _then_, is more
strongly felt now, for no person has as yet attempted to construct a
work upon the plan proposed, and the difficulties which were to have
been remedied, are greatly aggravated by time. Eighty years have
passed, and not only has no new work been written upon the plan of Dr.
Johnson—but no systematic work of reform upon the old basis.
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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