522

Worcester's Edition of Johnson and Walker. [Oct.

converted from nouns, as, to extinct, livery, quick, quip, rook; so likewise of nouns from verbs without any change, as, abbreviate, fluster, foreshew; of adjectives from substantives, as, absorbent, fiscal; of substantives from adjectives, as bitter, desperate, positive.

Last and not least in this enumeration, are the active participial nouns, which are added to the vocabulary by Mr Todd, to a great extent; such as biting, fading, deserving, despising, ingratiating, interfering, loathing. These additions are of questionable utility, though, if they are admitted at all, it may be done upon very slight authority. We are sure that we could furnish a large catalogue of such additions. Indeed, if we examine the nature of these words, not only in English, but in other languages, we may readily perceive how easily they perform the office of substantives, and how hopeless it is, by singling out a part of them, to do justice to the whole class.

We have thus given something like a classification of some of the principal additions made to the English vocabulary, by Mr Todd. The classification is not complete, but it is sufficiently so, to account in a great degree for the fact of such a large increase of words, and to quiet much of the alarm which this increase might occasion to those who are not accustomed to speculations of this kind.

'The vocabulary,' says Mr Worcester, the editor, with the definitions, &c. is formed chiefly by a union of Mr Chalmers's Abridgment and Walker's Pronouncing Dictionary; but with the omission of Walker's definitions, except with regard to those words in his Dictionary (not much exceeding one hundred in number), which are not found in Mr Todd's edition of Johnson.'The Appendix contains all the words newly added by Mr Todd in his second edition; a number of words that are found in the body of the dictionary, here repeated for the sake of some correction or remark; a few words of unquestionable authority which were omitted by Dr Johnson and Mr Todd; and some words which are more or less used in America.'

It is manifest from this account, that the Dictionary thus edited by Mr Worcester, contains the most complete vocabulary in our language. And the following remarks of the editor show how the benefits of Walker's system of pronunciation are extended to this enlarged dictionary.

To the words contained in this dictionary, which are not found

1828.] Worcester's Edition of Johnson and Walker.

523

in Walker's, the pronunciation has been added, according to Walker's principles, as far as those principles could be applied; and this was easily done with respect to most of them.'-' With respect to many words of doubtful pronunciation, or concerning which orthoëpists differ, and particularly those, respecting which Walker has omitted to exhibit this difference, the editor has introduced the pronunciation of others, with the names of the authorities, enclosed in brackets, yet, in all cases, making use of Walker's method of notation.'

The whole apparatus of Walker concerning pronunciation is furnished in this dictionary, not excepting his 'Key to the Classical Pronunciation of Greek, Latin, and Scripture proper `names,' and his Observations on the Greek and Latin Accent and Quantity'; so that the worst charge against it that can be made, if any, is that of superfluity. In his Preface, Mr Worcester, while he speaks of Walker with that high commendation which he deserves, has made certain strictures upon his system of pronunciation, which appear to us to be just and discriminating, but which we have not time to remark upon in this place.

In regard to orthography, Mr Worcester has assumed no responsibility farther than by making a few valuable improvements for the sake of consistency, which he has carefully specified. Some debateable ground on this subject is open for philological critics. There will always probably remain a variable orthography in some words, such as choose or chuse, intire or entire, despatch or dispatch, and others that might be mentioned. We find cases of this kind, in other languages, where we should expect it less than in English. But the examples of fluctuating orthography are now so few, as to occasion little inconvenience.

We intended earlier to examine the dictionary before us, and to give the fruits of our researches at greater length. We have sufficient knowledge of the history and the progress of the work, so far as Mr Worcester was concerned in it, to enable us to speak with confidence upon the subject. In the execution of the plan adopted, he has been laborious, faithful, and judicious. The materials of which the body of the work, the English Dictionary, is composed, we have spoken of sufficiently to show how they have been combined. And our readers will be satisfied, we think, that this is the most complete manual of the kind that has yet appeared, and competent to all the purposes for which it was intended.

Another opportunity will soon be afforded us of recurring to this subject, if we shall have the resolution to meet it, in the great and long expected work of Mr Noah Webster. His extensive and ardent researches in philology are well known, and calculated to excite the impatient curiosity of the scholar. We shall certainly welcome all productions of this kind, which shall tend to make the English language more studied and better understood; and we shall not feel the less grateful to the authors of them, because they labor in a vocation, which to most scholars is far from being attractive.

ART. XIII.-Yu-Kiao-Li, ou les Deux Cousines; Roman Chinois, traduit par M. Abel Remusat; précédé d'une Préface où se trouve un Parallèle entre les Romans de la Chine et ceux de l'Europe. 4 vol. 12mo. Paris.

1828.

'You have made me bounce off my chair,' said lady Bradshaigh in a letter to the author of Sir Charles Grandison, 'you have made me bounce off my chair with reading that two good girls were in love with your hero, and that he was fond of both. I have such despicable notions of a divided love, that I cannot have an idea how a worthy object can entertain such a thought.' It is so long since we indulged ourselves with a reperusal of the celebrated work in question, that we are not able to say from our own recollection how far her ladyship's censure of the conduct of Sir Charles and his two enamoradas is justified by the standing rules of the code of romance, and the multiplied reports of cases illustrating it, that occupy the shelves of the circulating libraries. But if such was the horror of this sentimental person at the mere imagination of a double attachment, what would have been her astonishment and indignation, had Richardson wound up the novel, by actually marrying his pink of moral perfection to both the fair pretenders? The least violent result of such a proceeding would doubtless have been the immediate termination of the quiet little practical romance, which her immaculate ladyship (without disparagement to the claims of good Mrs Richardson) was enacting in connexion with the ingenious bookseller. Such, however, is in fact the

catastrophe of the Chinese novel to which we are now to invite the readers attention.

The hero Sa-Yupe,* a young man far more learned and accomplished than Sir Charles, and not less handsome, elegant, and virtuous, after running the gantlet for the space of four volumes, through the long train of cruel fathers, cross uncles, eccentric fortune-tellers, stupid rivals, and knowing chambermaids, which, it seems, form the regular staple of an oriental as well as an occidental novel; besides passing with brilliant success several literary examinations, and making a great deal of first-rate poetry,-achievements which the heroes of our romances, and, we fear we may add, the writers of them, would probably, in most cases, decline attempting, is finally rewarded for his merit and trouble, with the hands of the two cousins, Houngiu, or Red-Jasper, and Lo-Mengli, Dream-of-a-Peartree, whom he espouses on the same evening, both being by general acknowledgment among the prettiest and most amiable young women, as well as the best poetesses of the Celestial Empire. We are informed by the translator, that the work before us is not singular in this respect; and that this mode of disposing of their heroes and heroines, at the end of the story, is rather a favorite one with the Chinese laborers in this seductive dapartment of the literary vineyard.

Richardson does not appear to have been much alarmed by lady Bradshaigh's bouncing, and is reported as having, in his answer to the letter from which we have made the above extract, thrown out hints that polygamy itself was not so bad a thing, as she seemed to suppose,―a principle more lax than we should have expected from the author of 'Pamela' and 'Clarissa,' although we have lately been surprised with something of the same kind from so exemplary a character as Milton, and which, as we understand the matter, is vicious as a reply to her ladyship's objection, since the doublemindedness of Sir Charles must, on our view of the subject, be justified, if at all, as an exception from the general rule, and not as an example of it. However this may be, it is obvious that the question of morality does not come into view in reference to

*In this and the other Chinese words introduced in this article, the vowels express the sounds usually given to them in English; a as in make, &c.

a foreign production, which faithfully represents the manners of the country where it is written. The fault, if there be one in this respect, lies with the lawgivers and moralists rather than the poets of China.

Leaving this point, therefore, entirely out of the case, we may inquire with propriety, which of the two systems be preferable for the purpose of poetical machinery, and whether the plan of allowing two heroines to a hero, be equally judicious-considering merely the effect of the novel as a work of art-with that of confining him to one, according to the uniform and immemorial practice of the western world. It is generally admitted that the denouement of a story is by far the most difficult part of the fable to manage. Dryden, towards the close of his career, was reduced to such distress on this point, that he is known to have bestowed, in the bitterness of his soul, repeated imprecations on the man who invented fifth acts; and such has been of late the great demand for new novels, that the dealers in this article are evidently reduced to their wits' ends for catastrophes. Sir Walter Scott complains loudly of the straits to which he is driven, for means to disentangle his plots; and it must be owned that some of his productions do but too strongly corroborate the statement. If the Chinese system could be proved to be preferable to ours, or even positively valuable in itself, (and a dispensation could also be obtained on the score of morality) the generation of novel-writers would find, for a time at least, a very sensible alleviation of their present embarrassment, and would be supplied with a new and most convenient and seasonable resource for varying the tenor of their concluding chapters.

But notwithstanding our willingness to consult the accommodation of these meritorious persons, to whom we are all so much indebted for their unwearied efforts to amuse us, we cannot, in conscience, hold up to them much prospect of relief from this quarter; and we are compelled, however reluctantly, to dissent from the opinion of the able and ingenious translator of the work before us, who is evidently inclined to believe that the introduction of the system of a plurality of heroines would have the effect of a sort of discovery in the science of novelwriting, and would tend to throw a new and agreeable light over the whole field of romance; which, as he seems to suppose, is, in its present state, if not absolutely a place of skulls (which are far from being out of the question), rather too lib