arly by quotations, is
applied in the _New English Dictionary_, if not in all cases with entire
success, yet, on the whole, with a regularity and a precision which
leave little to be desired. A minor fault is that excerpts from second
or third rate authors have occasionally been used where better ones from
writers of the first class either must have been at hand or could have
been found. As was said above, the literary quality of the question is
highly important even in historical lexicography, and should not be
neglected unnecessarily. Other special features of the book are the
completeness with which variations of pronunciation and orthography
(with dates) are given; the fulness and scientific excellence of the
etymologies, which abound in new information and corrections of old
errors; the phonetic precision with which the present (British)
pronunciation is indicated; and the elaborate subdivision of meanings.
The definitions as a whole are marked by a high degree of accuracy,
though in a certain number of cases (not explicable by the date of the
volumes) the lists of meanings are not so good as one would expect, as
compared (say) with the _Century Dictionary_. Work of such magnitude
and quality is possible, practically, only when the editor of the
dictionary can command not merely the aid of a very large number of
scholars and men of science, but their gratuitous aid. In this the _New
English Dictionary_ has been singularly fortunate. The conditions under
which it originated, and its aim, have interested scholars everywhere,
and led them to contribute to the perfecting of it their knowledge and
time. The long list of names of such helpers in Sir J. A. H. Murray's
preface is in curious contrast with their absence from Dr Johnson's and
the few which are given in that of Littre. The editor's principal
assistants were Dr Henry Bradley and Dr W. A. Craigie. Of the dictionary
as a whole it may be said that it is one of the greatest achievements,
whether in literature or science, of modern English scholarship and
research.

The _New English Dictionary_ furnishes for the first time data from
which the extent of the English word-store at any given period, and
the direction and rapidity of its growth, can fairly be estimated. For
this purpose the materials furnished by the older dictionaries are
quite insufficient, on account of their incompleteness and
unhistorical character. For example 100 pages of the _New Engl