nded owing
to the progress of lexicographical knowledge have been reserved for the
foot-notes, and these can always be distinguished from those in the
original by the square brackets [thus] within which they are placed.

On the whole more corrections have been required in _English Past and
Present_ than in _The Study of Words_ owing to the sweeping statements
which involve universal negatives--statements, e.g. that certain words
either first came into use, or ceased to be employed, at a specific
date. Nothing short of the combined researches of an army of
co-operative workers, such as the _New English Dictionary_ commanded,
could warrant the correctness of assertions of this kind, which imply an
exhaustive acquaintance with a subject so immense as the entire range of
English literature.

Even the mistakes of a learned man are instructive to those who essay to
follow in his steps, and it is not without use to point them out instead
of ignoring or expunging them. Thus, when the Archbishop falls into the
error (venial when he wrote) of assuming an etymological connexion
between certain words which have a specious air of kinship--such as
'care' and 'cura,' 'bloom' and 'blossom,' 'ghastly' and 'ghostly,'
'brat' and 'brood,' 'slow' and 'slough'--he makes just the mistakes
which we would be tempted to make ourselves had not Professor Skeat and
Dr. Murray and the great German School of philologists taught us to know
better. Our plan, therefore, has been to leave such errors in the text
and point out the better way in the notes. In other words, we have
treated the Archbishop's work as a classic, and the occasional
emendations in the notes serve to mark the progress of half a century of
etymological investigation. It is hardly necessary to point out that the
chronological landmarks occurring here and there need an obvious
equation of time to make them correct for the present year of grace,
e.g. 'lately,' when it occurs, must be understood to mean at least fifty
years ago, and a similar addition must be made to other time-points when
they present themselves.

A. SMYTHE PALMER.

PREFACE TO THE FIRST EDITION

A series of four lectures which I delivered last spring to the pupils of
the King's College School, London, supplied the foundation to this
present volume. These lectures, which I was obliged to prepare in haste,
on a brief invitation, and under the pressure of other engage