Bibliography.—During his lifetime Dickens’s biographer was clearly indicated in his guide, philosopher and friend, John Forster, who had known the novelist intimately since the days of his first triumph withPickwick, who had constituted himself a veritable encyclopaedia of information about Dickens, and had clung to his subject (in spite of many rebuffs which his peremptory temper found it hard to digest) as tightly as ever Boswell had enveloped Johnson. Two volumes of Forster’sLife of Charles Dickensappeared in 1872 and a third in 1874. He relied much on Dickens’s letters to himself and produced what must always remain the authoritative work. The first two volumes are put together with much art, the portrait as a whole has been regarded as truthful, and the immediate success was extraordinary. In the opinion of Carlyle, Forster’s book was not unworthy to be named after that of Boswell. A useful abridgment was carried out in 1903 by the novelist George Gissing. Gissing also wroteCharles Dickens: A Critical Study(1898), which ranks with G.K. Chesterton’sCharles Dickens(1906) as a commentary inspired by deep insight and adorned by great literary talent upon the genius of the master-novelist. The names of other lives, sketches, articles and estimates of Dickens and his works would occupy a large volume in the mere enumeration. See R.H. Shepherd,The Bibliography of Dickens(1880);James Cooke’s Bibliography of the Writings of Charles Dickens(1879);Dickensiana, by F. G. Kitton (1886); andBibliographyby J.P. Anderson, appended to Sir F.T. Marzials’sLife of Charles Dickens(1887). Among the earlier sketches may be specially cited the lives by J. C. Hotten and G. A. Sala (1870), the Anecdote-Biography edited by the American R. H. Stoddard (1874), Dr A. W. Ward in the English Men of Letters Series (1878), that by Sir Leslie Stephen in theDictionary of National Biography, and that by Professor Minto in the eighth edition of theEncyclopaedia Britannica. TheLetterswere first issued in two volumes edited by his daughter and sister-in-law in 1880. For Dickens’s connexion with Kent the following books are specially valuable:—Robert Langton’sChildhood and Youth of Charles Dickens(1883); Langton’sDickens and Rochester(1880); Thomas Frost’sIn Kent with Charles Dickens(1880); F. G. Kitton’sThe Dickens Country(1905); H. S. Ward’sThe Real Dickens Land(1904); R. Allbut’sRambles in Dickens Land(1899 and 1903). For Dickens’s reading tours see G. Dolby’sCharles Dickens as I knew him(1884); J. T. Fields’sIn and Out of Doors with Charles Dickens(1876); Charles Kent’sDickens as a Reader(1872). And for other aspects of his life see M. Dickens’sMy Father as I recall him(1897); P. H. Fitzgerald’sLife of C. Dickens as revealed in his Writings(1905), andBozland(1895); F. G. Kitton’sCharles Dickens, his Life, Writings and Personality, a useful compendium (1902); T. E. Pemberton’sCharles Dickens and the Stage, andDickens’s London(1876); F. Miltoun’sDickens’s London(1904); Kitton’sDickens and his Illustrators; W. Teignmouth Shore’sCharles Dickens and his Friends(1904 and 1909); B. W. Matz,Story of Dickens’s Life and Work(1904), and review of solutions toEdwin DroodinThe Bookmanfor March 1908; the recollections of Edmund Yates, Trollope, James Payn, Lehmann, R. H. Horne, Lockwood and many others.The Dickensian, a magazine devoted to Dickensian subjects, was started in 1905; it is the organ of the Dickens Fellowship, and in a sense of the Boz Club.A Dickens Dictionary(by G. A. Pierce) appeared in 1872 and 1878; another (by A. J. Philip) in 1909; and aDickens Concordanceby Mary Williams in 1907.
Bibliography.—During his lifetime Dickens’s biographer was clearly indicated in his guide, philosopher and friend, John Forster, who had known the novelist intimately since the days of his first triumph withPickwick, who had constituted himself a veritable encyclopaedia of information about Dickens, and had clung to his subject (in spite of many rebuffs which his peremptory temper found it hard to digest) as tightly as ever Boswell had enveloped Johnson. Two volumes of Forster’sLife of Charles Dickensappeared in 1872 and a third in 1874. He relied much on Dickens’s letters to himself and produced what must always remain the authoritative work. The first two volumes are put together with much art, the portrait as a whole has been regarded as truthful, and the immediate success was extraordinary. In the opinion of Carlyle, Forster’s book was not unworthy to be named after that of Boswell. A useful abridgment was carried out in 1903 by the novelist George Gissing. Gissing also wroteCharles Dickens: A Critical Study(1898), which ranks with G.K. Chesterton’sCharles Dickens(1906) as a commentary inspired by deep insight and adorned by great literary talent upon the genius of the master-novelist. The names of other lives, sketches, articles and estimates of Dickens and his works would occupy a large volume in the mere enumeration. See R.H. Shepherd,The Bibliography of Dickens(1880);James Cooke’s Bibliography of the Writings of Charles Dickens(1879);Dickensiana, by F. G. Kitton (1886); andBibliographyby J.P. Anderson, appended to Sir F.T. Marzials’sLife of Charles Dickens(1887). Among the earlier sketches may be specially cited the lives by J. C. Hotten and G. A. Sala (1870), the Anecdote-Biography edited by the American R. H. Stoddard (1874), Dr A. W. Ward in the English Men of Letters Series (1878), that by Sir Leslie Stephen in theDictionary of National Biography, and that by Professor Minto in the eighth edition of theEncyclopaedia Britannica. TheLetterswere first issued in two volumes edited by his daughter and sister-in-law in 1880. For Dickens’s connexion with Kent the following books are specially valuable:—Robert Langton’sChildhood and Youth of Charles Dickens(1883); Langton’sDickens and Rochester(1880); Thomas Frost’sIn Kent with Charles Dickens(1880); F. G. Kitton’sThe Dickens Country(1905); H. S. Ward’sThe Real Dickens Land(1904); R. Allbut’sRambles in Dickens Land(1899 and 1903). For Dickens’s reading tours see G. Dolby’sCharles Dickens as I knew him(1884); J. T. Fields’sIn and Out of Doors with Charles Dickens(1876); Charles Kent’sDickens as a Reader(1872). And for other aspects of his life see M. Dickens’sMy Father as I recall him(1897); P. H. Fitzgerald’sLife of C. Dickens as revealed in his Writings(1905), andBozland(1895); F. G. Kitton’sCharles Dickens, his Life, Writings and Personality, a useful compendium (1902); T. E. Pemberton’sCharles Dickens and the Stage, andDickens’s London(1876); F. Miltoun’sDickens’s London(1904); Kitton’sDickens and his Illustrators; W. Teignmouth Shore’sCharles Dickens and his Friends(1904 and 1909); B. W. Matz,Story of Dickens’s Life and Work(1904), and review of solutions toEdwin DroodinThe Bookmanfor March 1908; the recollections of Edmund Yates, Trollope, James Payn, Lehmann, R. H. Horne, Lockwood and many others.The Dickensian, a magazine devoted to Dickensian subjects, was started in 1905; it is the organ of the Dickens Fellowship, and in a sense of the Boz Club.A Dickens Dictionary(by G. A. Pierce) appeared in 1872 and 1878; another (by A. J. Philip) in 1909; and aDickens Concordanceby Mary Williams in 1907.
(T. Se.)
DICKINSON, ANNA ELIZABETH(1842-  ), American author and lecturer, was born, of Quaker parentage, at Philadelphia, Pennsylvania, on the 28th of October 1842. She was educated at the Friends’ Free School in Philadelphia, and was for a time a teacher. In 1861 she obtained a clerkship in the United States mint, but was removed for criticizing General McClellan at a public meeting. She had gradually become widely known as an eloquent and persuasive public speaker, one of the first of her sex to mount the platform to discuss the burning questions of the hour. Before the Civil War she lectured on anti-slavery topics, during the war she toured the country on behalf of the Sanitary Commission, and also lectured on reconstruction, temperance and woman’s rights. She wrote several plays, includingThe Crown of Thorns(1876);Mary Tudor(1878), in which she appeared in the title rôle;Aurelian(1878); andAn American Girl(1880), successfully acted by Fanny Davenport. She also published a novel,Which Answer?(1868);A Paying Investment, a Plea for Education(1876); andA Ragged Register of People, Places and Opinions(1879).
DICKINSON, JOHN(1732-1808), American statesman and pamphleteer, was born in Talbot county, Maryland, on the 8th of November 1732. He removed with his father to Kent county, Delaware, in 1740, studied under private tutors, read law, and in 1753 entered the Middle Temple, London. Returning to America in 1757, he began the practice of law in Philadelphia, was speaker of the Delaware assembly in 1760, and was a member of the Pennsylvania assembly in 1762-1765 and again in 1770-1776.1He represented Pennsylvania in the Stamp Act Congress (1765) and in the Continental Congress from 1774 to 1776, when he was defeated owing to his opposition to the Declaration of Independence. He then retired to Delaware, served for a time as private and later as brigader-general in the state militia, and was again a member of the Continental Congress (from Delaware) in 1779-1780. He was president of the executive council, or chief executive officer, of Delaware in 1781-1782, and of Pennsylvania in 1782-1785, and was a delegate from Delaware to the Annapolis convention of 1786 and the Federal Constitutional convention of 1787. Dickinson has aptly been called the “Penman of the Revolution.†No other writer of the day presented arguments so numerous, so timely and so popular. He drafted the “Declaration of Rights†of the Stamp Act Congress, the “Petition to the King†and the “Address to the Inhabitants of Quebec†of the Congress of 1774, and the second “Petition to the Kingâ€2and the “Articles of Confederation†of the second Congress. Most influential of all, however, wereThe Letters of a Farmer in Pennsylvania, written in 1767-1768 in condemnation of the Townshend Acts of 1767, in which he rejected speculative natural rights theories and appealed to the common sense of the people through simple legal arguments. By opposing the Declaration of Independence, he lost his popularity and was never able entirely to regain it. As the representative of a small state, he championed the principle of state equality in the constitutional convention, but was one of the first to advocate the compromise, which was finally adopted, providing for equal representation, in one house and proportional representation in the other. He was probably influenced by Delaware prejudice against Pennsylvania when he drafted the clause which forbids the creation of a new state by the junction of two or more states or parts of states without the consent of the states concerned as well as of congress. After the adjournment of the convention he defended its work in a series of letters signed “Fabius,†which will bear comparison with the best of the Federalist productions. It was largely through his influence that Delaware and Pennsylvania were the first two states to ratify the Constitution. Dickinson’s interests were not exclusively political. He helped to found Dickinson College (named in his honour) at Carlisle, Pennsylvania, in 1783, was the first president of its board of trustees, and was for many years its chief benefactor. He died on the 14th of February 1808 and was buried in the Friends’ burial ground in Wilmington, Del.
See C. J. Stillé,Life and Times of John Dickinson, and P. L. Ford (editor),The Writings of John Dickinson, in vols. xiii. and xiv. respectively of theMemoirs of the Historical Society of Pennsylvania(Philadelphia, 1891 and 1895).
See C. J. Stillé,Life and Times of John Dickinson, and P. L. Ford (editor),The Writings of John Dickinson, in vols. xiii. and xiv. respectively of theMemoirs of the Historical Society of Pennsylvania(Philadelphia, 1891 and 1895).
1Being under the same proprietor and the same governor, Pennsylvania and Delaware were so closely connected before the Revolution that there was an interchange of public men.2The “Declaration of the United Colonies of North America ... setting forth the Causes and the Necessity of their Taking up Arms†(often erroneously attributed to Thomas Jefferson).
1Being under the same proprietor and the same governor, Pennsylvania and Delaware were so closely connected before the Revolution that there was an interchange of public men.
2The “Declaration of the United Colonies of North America ... setting forth the Causes and the Necessity of their Taking up Arms†(often erroneously attributed to Thomas Jefferson).
DICKSON, SIR ALEXANDER(1777-1840), British artillerist, entered the Royal Military Academy in 1793, passing out as second lieutenant in the Royal Artillery in the following year. As a subaltern he saw service in Minorca in 1798 and at Malta in 1800. As a captain he took part in the unfortunate Montevideo Expedition of 1806-07, and in 1809 he accompanied Howorth to the Peninsular War as brigade-major of the artillery. He soon obtained a command in the Portuguese artillery, and as a lieutenant-colonel of the Portuguese service took part in the various battles of 1810-11. At the two sieges of Budazoz, Ciudad Rodrigo, the Salamanca forts and Burgos, he was entrusted by Wellington (who had the highest opinion of him) with most of the detailed artillery work, and at Salamanca battle he commanded the reserve artillery. In the end he became commander of the whole of the artillery of the allied army, and though still only a substantive captain in the British service he had under his orders some 8000 men. At Vitoria, the Pyrenees battles and Toulouse he directed the movements of the artillery engaged, and at the end of the war received handsome presents from the officers who had served under him, many of whom were his seniors in the army list. He was at the disastrous affair of New Orleans, but returned to Europe in time for the Waterloo campaign. He was present at Quatre Bras and Waterloo on the artillery staff of Wellington’s army, and subsequently commanded the British battering train at the sieges of the French fortresses left behind the advancing allies. For the rest of his life he was on home service, principally as a staff officer of artillery. He died, a major-general and G.C.B., in 1840. A memorial was erected at Woolwich in 1847. Dickson was one of the earliest fellows of the Royal Geographical Society.
His diaries kept in the Peninsula were the main source of information used in Duncan’sHistory of the Royal Artillery.
His diaries kept in the Peninsula were the main source of information used in Duncan’sHistory of the Royal Artillery.
DICKSON, SIR JAMES ROBERT(1832-1901), Australian statesman, was born in Plymouth on the 30th of November 1832. He was brought up in Glasgow, receiving his education at the high school, and became a clerk in the City of Glasgow Bank. In 1854 he emigrated to Victoria, but after some years spent in that colony and in New South Wales, he settled in 1862 in Queensland, where he was connected with many important business enterprises, among them the Royal Bank of Queensland. He entered the Queensland House of Assembly in 1872, and became minister of works (1876), treasurer (1876-1879, and 1883-1887), acting premier (1884), but resigned in 1887 on the question of taxing land. In 1889 he retired from business, and spent three years in Europe before resuming political life. He fought for the introduction of Polynesian labour on the Queensland sugar plantations at the general election of 1892, and was elected to the House of Assembly in that year and again at the elections of 1893 and 1896. He became secretary for railways in 1897, minister for home affairs in 1898, represented Queensland in the federal council of Australia in 1896 and at the postal conference at Hobart in 1898, and in 1898 became premier. His energies were now devoted to the formation of an Australian commonwealth. He secured the reference of the question to a plebiscite, the result of which justified his anticipations. He resigned the premiership in November 1899, but in the ministry of Robert Philp, formed in the next month, he was reappointed to the offices of chief secretary and vice-president of the executive council which he had combined with the office of premier. He represented Queensland in 1900 at the conference held in London to consider the question of Australian unity, and on his return was appointed minister of defence in the first government of the Australian Commonwealth. He did not long survive the accomplishment of his political aims, dying at Sydney on the 10th of January 1901, in the midst of the festivities attending the inauguration of the new state.
DICOTYLEDONS,in botany, the larger of the two great classes of angiosperms, embracing most of the common flower-bearing plants. The name expresses the most universal character of the class, the importance of which was first noticed by John Ray, namely, the presence of a pair of seed-leaves or cotyledons, in the plantlet or embryo contained in the seed. The embryo is generally surrounded by a larger or smaller amount of foodstuff (endosperm) which serves to nourish it in its development to form a seedling when the seed germinates; frequently, however, as in pea or bean and their allies, the whole of the nourishment for future use is stored up in the cotyledons themselves, which then become thick and fleshy. In germination of the seed the root of the embryo (radicle) grows out to get a holdfast for the plant; this is generally followed by the growth of the short stem immediately above the root, the so-called “hypocotyl,†which carries up the cotyledons above the ground, where they spread to the light and become the first green leaves of the plant. Protected between the cotyledons and terminating the axis of the plant is the first stem-bud (the plumule of the embryo), by the further growth and development of which the aerial portion of the plant, consisting of stem, leaves and branches, is formed, while the development of the radicle forms the root-system. The size and manner of growth of the adult plant show a great variety, from the small herb lasting for one season only, to the forest tree living for centuries. The arrangement of the conducting tissue in the stem is characteristic; a transverse section of the very young stem shows anumberof distinct conducting strands—vascular bundles—arranged in a ring round the pith; these soon become united to form a closed ring of bast and wood, separated by a layer of formative tissue (cambium). In perennials the stem shows a regular increase in thickness each year by the addition of a new ring of wood outside the old one—for details of structure seePlants:Anatomy. A similar growth occurs in the root. This increase in the diameter of stem and root is correlated with the increase in leaf-area each season, due to the continued production of new leaf-bearing branches. A characteristic of the class is afforded by the complicated network formed by the leaf-veins,—well seen in a skeleton leaf, from which the soft parts have been removed by maceration. The parts of the flower are most frequently arranged in fives, or multiples of fives; for instance, a common arrangement is as follows,—five sepals, succeeded by five petals, ten stamens in two sets of five, and five or fewer carpels; an arrangement in fours is less frequent, while the arrangement in threes, so common in monocotyledons, is rare in dicotyledons. In some orders the parts are numerous, chiefly in the case of the stamens and the carpels, as in the buttercup and other members of the order Ranunculaceae. There is a very wide range in the general structure and arrangement of the parts of the flower, associated with the means for ensuring the transference of pollen; in the simplest cases the flower consists only of a few stamens or carpels, with no enveloping sepals or petals, as in the willow, while in the more elaborate type each series is represented, the whole forming a complicated structure closely correlated with the size, form and habits of the pollinating agent (seeFlower). The characters of the fruit and seed and the means for ensuring the dispersal of the seeds are also very varied (seeFruit).
DICTATOR(from the Lat.dictare, frequentative ofdicere, to speak). In modern usage this term is loosely used for a personal ruler enjoying extraordinary and extra-constitutional power. The etymological sense of one who “dictatesâ€â€”i.e.one whose word (dictum) is law (from which that of one who “dictates,â€i.e.speaks for some writer to record, is to be distinguished)—has been assisted by the historical use of the term, in ancient times, for an extraordinary magistrate in the Roman commonwealth. It is unknown precisely how the Roman word came into use, though an explanation of the earlier official title, magister populi, throws some light on the subject. That designation may mean “head of the (infantry) host†as opposed to his subordinate, the magister equitum, who was “head of the cavalry.†If this explanation be accepted, emphasis was thus laid in early times on the military aspect of the dictatorship, and in fact the office seems to have been instituted for the purpose of meeting a military crisis such as might have proved too serious for the annual consuls with their divided command. Later constitutional theory held that the repression of civil discord was also one of the motives for the institution of a dictatorship. Such is the view expressed by Cicero in theDe legibus(iii. 3, 9) and by the emperor Claudius in his extantOratio(i. 28). This function of the office, although it may not have been contemplated at first, is attested by the internal history of Rome. In the crisis of the agitation that gathered round the Licinian laws (367b.c.) a dictator was appointed, and in 314b.c.we have the notice of a dictator created for purposes of criminal jurisdiction (quaestionibus exercendis). The dictator appointed to meet the dangers of war, sedition or crime was technically described as “the administrative dictator†(rei gerundae causa). Minor, or merely formal, needs of the state might lead to the creation of other types of this office. Thus we find dictators destined to hold the elections, to make out the list of the senate, to celebrate games, to establish festivals, and to drive the nail into the temple of Jupiter—an act of natural magic which was believed to avert pestilence. These dictators appointed for minor purposes were expected to retire from office as soon as their function was completed. The “administrative dictator†held office for at least six months.
The powers of a dictator were a temporary revival of those of the kings; but there were some limitations to his authority. He was never concerned with civil jurisdiction, and was dependent on the senate for supplies of money. His military authority was confined to Italy; and his power of life and death over the citizens was at an early period limited by law. It was probably thelex Valeriaof 300b.c.that made him subject to the right of criminal appeal (provocatio) within the limits of the city. But during his tenure of power all the magistrates of the people were regarded as his subordinates; and it was even held that the right of assistance (auxilium), furnished by the tribunes of the plebs to members of the citizen body, should not be effectively exercised when the state was under this type of martial law. The dictator was nominated by one of the consuls. But here as elsewhere the senate asserted its authority over the magistrates, and the view was finally held that the senate should not only suggest the need of nomination but also the name of the nominee. After the nomination, the imperium of the dictator was confirmed by alex curiata(seeComitia). To emphasize the superiority of this imperium over that of the consuls, the dictator might be preceded by twenty-four lictors, not by the usual twelve; and, at least in the earlier period of the office, these lictors bore the axes, the symbols of life and death, within the city walls.
Tradition represents the dictatorship as having a life of three centuries in the history of the Roman state. The first dictator is said to have been created in 501b.c.; the last of the “administrative†dictators belongs to the year 216b.c.It was an office that was incompatible both with the growing spirit of constitutionalism and with the greater security of the city; and the epoch of the Second Punic War was marked by experiments with the office, such as the election of Q. Fabius Maximus by the people, and the co-dictatorship of M. Minucius with Fabius, which heralded its disuse (seePunic Wars). The emergency office of the early and middle Republic has few points of contact, except those of the extraordinary position and almost unfettered authority of its holder, with the dictatorship as revised by Sulla and by Caesar. Sulla’s dictatorship was the form taken by a provisional government. He was created “for the establishment of the Republic.†It is less certain whether the dictatorships held by Caesar were of a consciously provisional character. Since the office represented the only supremeImperiumin Rome, it was the natural resort of the founder of a monarchy (seeSullaandCaesar). Ostensibly to prevent its further use for such a purpose, M. Antonius in 44b.c.carried a law abolishing the dictatorship as a part of the constitution.
Bibliography.—Mommsen,Römisches Staatsrecht, ii. 141 foll. (3rd ed., Leipzig, 1887); Herzog,Geschichte und System der römischen Staatsverfassung, i. 718 foll. (Leipzig, 1884); Pauly-Wissowa,Realencyclopädie, v. 370 foll. (new edition, Stuttgart. 1893, &c.);Lange,Römische Alterthümer, i. 542 foll. (Berlin, 1856, &c.); Daremberg-Saglio,Dictionnaire des antiquités grecques et romaines, ii. 161 foll. (1875, &c.); Haverfield, “The Abolition of the Dictatorship,†inClassical Review, iii. 77.
Bibliography.—Mommsen,Römisches Staatsrecht, ii. 141 foll. (3rd ed., Leipzig, 1887); Herzog,Geschichte und System der römischen Staatsverfassung, i. 718 foll. (Leipzig, 1884); Pauly-Wissowa,Realencyclopädie, v. 370 foll. (new edition, Stuttgart. 1893, &c.);Lange,Römische Alterthümer, i. 542 foll. (Berlin, 1856, &c.); Daremberg-Saglio,Dictionnaire des antiquités grecques et romaines, ii. 161 foll. (1875, &c.); Haverfield, “The Abolition of the Dictatorship,†inClassical Review, iii. 77.
(A. H. J. G.)
DICTIONARY.In its proper and most usual meaning a dictionary is a book containing a collection of the words of a language, dialect or subject, arranged alphabetically or in some other definite order, and with explanations in theDefinition and history.same or some other language. When the words are few in number, being only a small part of those belonging to the subject, or when they are given without explanation, or some only are explained, or the explanations are partial, the work is called avocabulary; and when there is merely a list of explanations of the technical words and expressions in some particular subject, aglossary. An alphabetical arrangement of the words of some book or author with references to the places where they occur is called an index (q.v.). When under each word the phrases containing it are added to the references, the work is called aconcordance. Sometimes, however, these names are given to true dictionaries; thus the great Italian dictionary of theAccademia della Crusca, in six volumes folio, is calledVocabolario, and Ernesti’s dictionary to Cicero is calledIndex. When the words are arranged according to a definite system of classification under heads and subdivisions, according to their nature or their meaning, the book is usually called a classed vocabulary; but when sufficient explanations are given it is often accepted as a dictionary, like theOnomasticonof Julius Pollux, or the native dictionaries of Sanskrit, Manchu and many other languages.
Dictionaries were originally books of reference explaining the words of a language or of some part of it. As the names of things, as well as those of persons and places, are words, and often require explanation even more than other classes of words, they were necessarily included in dictionaries, and often to a very great extent. In time, books were devoted to them alone, and were limited to special subjects, and these have so multiplied, that dictionaries of things now rival in number and variety those of words or of languages, while they often far surpass them in bulk. There are dictionaries of biography and history, real and fictitious, general and special, relating to men of all countries, characters and professions; the EnglishDictionary of National Biography(seeBiography) is a great instance of one form of these; dictionaries of bibliography, relating to all books, or to those of some particular kind or country; dictionaries of geography (sometimes calledgazetteers) of the whole world, of particular countries, or of small districts, of towns and of villages, of castles, monasteries and other buildings. There are dictionaries of philosophy; of the Bible; of mathematics; of natural history, zoology, botany; of birds, trees, plants and flowers; of chemistry, geology and mineralogy; of architecture, painting and music; of medicine, surgery, anatomy, pathology and physiology; of diplomacy; of law, canon, civil, statutory and criminal; of political and social sciences; of agriculture, rural economy and gardening; of commerce, navigation, horsemanship and the military arts; of mechanics, machines and the manual arts. There are dictionaries of antiquities, of chronology, of dates, of genealogy, of heraldry, of diplomatics, of abbreviations, of useful receipts, of monograms, of adulterations and of very many other subjects. These works are separately referred to in the bibliographies attached to the articles on the separate subjects. And lastly, there are dictionaries of the arts and sciences, and their comprehensive offspring, encyclopaedias (q.v.), which include in themselves every branch of knowledge. Neither under the heading ofdictionarynor under that ofencyclopaediado we propose to include a mention of every work of its class, but many of these will be referred to in the separate articles on the subjects to which they pertain. And in this article we confine ourselves to an account of those dictionaries which are primarily word-books. This is practically the most convenient distinction from the subject-book or encyclopaedia; though the two characters are often combined in one work. Thus theCentury Dictionaryhas encyclopaedic features, while the present edition of theEncyclopaedia Britannica, restoring its earlier tradition but carrying out the idea more systematically, also embodies dictionary features.
Dictionariumis a word of low or modern Latinity;1dictio, from which it was formed, was used in medieval Latin to mean a word.Lexiconis a corresponding word of Greek origin, meaning a book of or for words—a dictionary. Aglossaryis properly a collection of unusual or foreign words requiring explanation. It is the name frequently given to English dictionaries of dialects, which the Germans usually callidioticon, and the Italiansvocabolario.Wörterbuch, a book of words, was first used among the Germans, according to Grimm, by Kramer (1719), imitated from the Dutchwoordenboek. From the Germans the Swedes and Danes adoptedordbok,ordbog. The Icelandicordabôk, like the German, contains the genitive plural. The Slavonic nations useslovar,slovnik, and the southern Slavsryetshnik, fromslovo,ryetsh, a word, formed, like dictionary and lexicon, without composition. Many other names have been given to dictionaries, asthesaurus,Sprachschatz,cornucopia,gazophylacium,comprehensorium,catholicon, to indicate their completeness;manipulus predicantium,promptorium puerorum,liber memorialis,hortus vocabulorum,ionia(a violet bed),alveary(a beehive),kamoos(the sea),haft kulzum(the seven seas),tsze tien(a standard of character),onomasticon,nomenclator,bibliotheca,elucidario,Mundart-sammlung,clavis,scala,pharetra,2La Cruscafrom the great Italian dictionary, andCalepino(in Spanish and Italian) from the Latin dictionary of Calepinus.
The tendency of great dictionaries is to unite in themselves all the peculiar features of special dictionaries. A large dictionary is most useful when a word is to be thoroughly studied, or when there is difficulty in making out the meaning of a word or phrase. Special dictionaries are more useful for special purposes; for instance, synonyms are best studied in a dictionary of synonyms. And small dictionaries are more convenient for frequent use, as in translating from an unfamiliar language, for words may be found more quickly, and they present the words and their meanings in a concentrated and compact form, instead of being scattered over a large space, and separated by other matter. Dictionaries of several languages, calledpolyglots, are of different kinds. Some are polyglot in the vocabulary, but not in the explanation, like Johnson’s dictionary of Persian and Arabic explained in English; some in the interpretation, but not in the vocabulary or explanation, likeCalepini octoglotton, a Latin dictionary of Latin, with the meanings in seven languages. Many great dictionaries are now polyglot in this sense. Some are polyglot in the vocabulary and interpretation, but are explained in one language, like Jal’sGlossaire nautique, a glossary of sea terms in many languages, giving the equivalents of each word in the other languages, but the explanation in French. Pauthier’sAnnamese Dictionaryis polyglot in a peculiar way. It gives the Chinese characters with their pronunciation in Chinese and Annamese. Special dictionaries are of many kinds. There are technical dictionaries of etymology, foreign words, dialects, secret languages, slang, neology, barbarous words, faults of expression, choice words, prosody, pronunciation, spelling, orators, poets, law, music, proper names, particular authors, nouns, verbs, participles, particles, double forms, difficulties and many others. Fick’s dictionary (Göttingen, 1868, 8vo; 1874-1876, 8vo, 4 vols.) is a remarkable attempt to ascertain the common language of the Indo-European nations before each of their great separations. In the second edition of hisEtymologische Forschungen(Lemgo and Detmoldt, 1859-1873, 8vo, 7217 pages) Pott gives a comparative lexicon of Indo-European roots, 2226 in number, occupying 5140 pages.
At no time was progress in the making of general dictionaries so rapid as during the second half of the 19th century. It is to be seen in three things: in the perfecting of the theory of what a general dictionary should be; in the elaborationMethods.of methods of collecting and editing lexicographic materials; and in the magnitude and improved quality of the work which has been accomplished or planned. Each of these can best be illustrated from English lexicography, in which the process of development has in all directions been carried farthest. The advance that has been made in theory began with a radical change of opinion with regard to the chief end of the general dictionary of a language. The older view of the matter was that the lexicographer should furnish a standard of usage—should register only those words which are, or at some period of the language have been, “good†from a literary point of view, with their “proper†senses and uses, or should at least furnish the means of determining what these are. In other words, his chief duty was conceived to be to sift and refine, to decide authoritatively questions with regard to good usage, and thus to fix the language as completely as might be possible within the limits determined by the literary taste of his time. Thus the Accademia della Crusca, founded near the close of the 16th century, was established for the purpose of purifying in this way the Italian tongue, and in 1612 theVocabolario degli Accademici della Crusca, long the standard of that language, was published. The Académie Française, the first edition of whose dictionary appeared in 1694, had a similar origin. In England the idea of constructing a dictionary upon this principle arose during the second quarter of the 18th century. It was imagined by men of letters—among them Alexander Pope—that the English language had then attained such perfection that further improvement was hardly possible, and it was feared that if it were not fixed by lexicographic authority deterioration would soon begin. Since there was no English “Academy,†it was necessary that the task should fall to some one whose judgment would command respect, and the man who undertook it was Samuel Johnson. His dictionary, the first edition of which, in two folio volumes, appeared in 1755, was in many respects admirable, but it was inadequate even as a standard of the then existing literary usage. Johnson himself did not long entertain the belief that the natural development of a language can be arrested in that or in any other way. His work was, however, generally accepted as a final authority, and the ideas upon which it was founded dominated English lexicography for more than a century. The first effective protest in England against the supremacy of this literary view was made by Dean (later Archbishop) Trench, in a paper on “Some Deficiencies in Existing English Dictionaries†read before the Philological Society in 1857. “A dictionary,†he said, “according to that idea of it which seems to me alone capable of being logically maintained, is aninventory of the language; much more, but this primarily.... It is no task of the maker of it to select thegoodwords of the language.... The business which he has undertaken is to collect and arrangeallwords, whether good or bad, whether they commend themselves to his judgment or otherwise....He is an historian of[the language],not a critic.†That is, for the literary view of the chief end of the general dictionary should be substituted the philological or scientific. In Germany this substitution had already been effected by Jacob and Wilhelm Grimm in their dictionary of the German language, the first volume of which appeared in 1854. In brief, then, the modern view is that the general dictionary of a language should be a record of all the words—current or obsolete—of that language, with all their meanings and uses, but should not attempt to be, except secondarily or indirectly, a guide to “good†usage. A “standard†dictionary has, in fact, been recognized to be an impossibility, if not an absurdity.
This theoretical requirement must, of course, be modified considerably in practice. The date at which a modern language is to be regarded by the lexicographer as “beginning†must, as a rule, be somewhat arbitrarily chosen; while considerable portions of its earlier vocabulary cannot be recovered because of the incompleteness of the literary record. Moreover, not even the most complete dictionary can include all the words which the records—earlier and later—actually contain. Many words, that is to say, which are found in the literature of a language cannot be regarded as, for lexicographic purposes, belonging to that language; while many more may or may not be held to belong to it, according to the judgment—almost the whim—of the individual lexicographer. This is especially true of the English tongue. “That vast aggregate of words and phrases which constitutes the vocabulary of English-speaking men presents, to the mind that endeavours to grasp it as a definite whole, the aspect of one of those nebulous masses familiar to the astronomer, in which a clear and unmistakable nucleus shades off on all sides, through zones of decreasing brightness, to a dim marginal film that seems to end nowhere, but to lose itself imperceptibly in the surrounding darkness†(Dr J. A. H. Murray,Oxford Dict.General Explanations, p. xvii). This “marginal film†of words with more or less doubtful claims to recognition includes thousands of the terms of the natural sciences (the New-Latin classificatory names of zoology and botany, names of chemical compounds and of minerals, and the like); half-naturalized foreign words; dialectal words; slang terms; trade names (many of which have passed or are passing into common use); proper names and many more. Many of these even the most complete dictionary should exclude; others it should include; but where the line shall be drawn will always remain a vexed question.
Another important principle upon which Trench insisted, and which also expresses a requirement of modern scientific philology, is that the dictionary shall be not merely a record, but also anhistoricalrecord of words and their uses. From the literary point of view the most important thing is present usage. To that alone the idea of a “standard†has any application. Dictionaries of the older type, therefore, usually make the common, or “proper†or “root†meaning of a word the starting point of its definition, and arrange its other senses in a logical or accidental order commonly ignoring the historical order in which the various meanings arose. Still less do they attempt to give data from which the vocabulary of the language at any previous period may be determined. The philologist, however, for whom the growth, or progressive alteration, of a language is a fact of central importance, regards no record of a language as complete which does not exhibit this growth in its successive stages. He desires to know when and where each word, and each form and sense of it, are first found in the language; if the word or sense is obsolete, when it died; and any other fact that throws light upon its history. He requires, accordingly, of the lexicographer that, having ascertained these data, he shall make them the foundation of his exposition—in particular, of the division and arrangement of his definitions, that sense being placed first which appeared first in order of time. In other words, each article in the dictionary should furnish an orderly biography of the word of which it treats, each word and sense being so dated that the exact time of its appearance and the duration of its use may as nearly as possible be determined. This, in principle, is the method of the new lexicography. In practice it is subject to limitations similar to those of the vocabulary mentioned above. Incompleteness of the early record is here an even greater obstacle; and there are many words whose history is, for one reason or another, so unimportant that to treat it elaborately would be a waste of labour and space.
The adoption of the historical principle involves a further noteworthy modification of older methods, namely, an important extension of the use of quotations. To Dr Johnson belongs the credit of showing how useful, when properly chosen, they may be, not only in corroborating the lexicographer’s statements, but also in revealing special shades of meaning or variations of use which his definitions cannot well express. No part of Johnson’s work is more valuable than this. This idea was more fully developed and applied by Dr Charles Richardson, whoseNew Dictionary of the English Language ... Illustrated by Quotations from the Best Authors(1835-1836) still remains a most valuable collection of literary illustrations. Lexicographers, however, have, withfew exceptions, until a recent date, employed quotations chiefly for the ends just mentioned—as instances of use or as illustrations of correct usage—with scarcely any recognition of their value as historical evidence; and they have taken them almost exclusively from the works of the “best†authors. But since all the data upon which conclusions with regard to the history of a word can be based must be collected from the literature of the language, it is evident that, in so far as the lexicographer is required to furnish evidence for an historical inference, a quotation is the best form in which he can give it. In fact, extracts, properly selected and grouped, are generally sufficient to show the entire meaning and biography of a word without the aid of elaborate definitions. The latter simply save the reader the trouble of drawing the proper conclusions for himself. A further rule of the new lexicography, accordingly, is that quotations should be used, primarily, as historical evidence, and that the history of words and meanings should be exhibited by means of them. The earliest instance of use that can be found, and (if the word or sense is obsolete) the latest, are as a rule to be given; while in the case of an important word or sense, instances taken from successive periods of its currency also should be cited. Moreover, a quotation which contains an important bit of historical evidence must be used, whether its source is “good,†from the literary point of view, or not—whether it is a classic of the language or from a daily newspaper; though where choice is possible, preference should, of course, be given to quotations extracted from the works of the best writers. This rule does not do away with the illustrative use of quotations, which is still recognized as highly important, but it subordinates it to their historical use. It is necessary to add that it implies that the extracts must be given exactly, and in the original spelling and capitalization, accurately dated, and furnished with a precise reference to author, book, volume, page and edition; for insistence upon these requirements—which are obviously important, whatever the use of the quotation may be—is one of the most noteworthy of modern innovations. Johnson usually gave simply the author’s name, and often quoted from memory and inaccurately; and many of his successors to this day have followed—altogether or to some extent—his example.
The chief difficulty in the way of this use of quotations—after the difficulty of collection—is that of finding space for them in a dictionary of reasonable size. Preference must be given to those which are essential, the number of those which are cited merely on methodical grounds being made as small as possible. It is hardly necessary to add that the negative evidence furnished by quotations is generally of little value; one can seldom, that is, be certain that the lexicographer has actually found the earliest or the latest use, or that the word or sense has not been current during some intermediate period from which he has no quotations.
Lastly, a much more important place in the scheme of the ideal dictionary is now assigned to theetymologyof words. This may be attributed, in part, to the recent rapid development of etymology as a science, and to the greater abundance of trustworthy data; but it is chiefly due to the fact that from the historical point of view the connexion between that section of the biography of a word which lies within the language—subsequent, that is, to the time when the language may, for lexicographical purposes, be assumed to have begun, or to the time when the word was adopted or invented—and its antecedent history has become more vital and interesting. Etymology, in other words, is essentially the history of theformof a word up to the time when it became a part of the language, and is, in a measure, an extension of the history of the development of the word in the language. Moreover, it is the only means by which the exact relations of allied words can be ascertained, and the separation of words of the same form but of diverse origin (homonyms) can be effected, and is thus, for the dictionary, the foundation of allfamily historyand correctgenealogy. In fact, the attention that has been paid to these two points in the best recent lexicography is one of its distinguishing and most important characteristics. Related to the etymology of words are the changes in their form which may have occurred while they have been in use as parts of the language—modifications of their pronunciation, corruptions by popular etymology or false associations, and the like. The facts with regard to these things which the wide research necessitated by the historical method furnishes abundantly to the modern lexicographer are often among the most novel and interesting of his acquisitions.
It should be added that even approximate conformity to the theoretical requirements of modern lexicography as above outlined is possible only under conditions similar to those under which the OxfordNew English Dictionarywas undertaken (see below). The labour demanded is too vast, and the necessary bulk of the dictionary too great. When, however, a language is recorded in one such dictionary, those of smaller size and more modest pretensions can rest upon it as an authority and conform to it as a model so far as their special limitations permit.
The ideal thus developed is primarily that of the general dictionary of the purely philological type, but it applies also to the encyclopaedic dictionary. In so far as the latter is strictly lexicographic—deals with words as words, and not with the things they denote—it should be made after the model of the former, and is defective to the extent in which it deviates from it. The addition of encyclopaedic matter to the philological in no way affects the general principles involved. It may, however, for practical reasons, modify their application in various ways. For example, the number of obsolete and dialectal words included may be much diminished and the number of scientific terms (for instance, new Latin botanical and zoological names) be increased; and the relative amount of space devoted to etymologies and quotations may be lessened. In general, since books of this kind are designed to serve more or less as works of general reference, the making of them must be governed by considerations of practical utility which the compilers of a purely philological dictionary are not obliged to regard. The encyclopaedic type itself, although it has often been criticized as hybrid—as a mixture of two things which should be kept distinct—is entirely defensible. Between the dictionary and the encyclopaedia the dividing line cannot sharply be drawn. There are words the meaning of which cannot be explained fully without some description of things, and, on the other hand, the description of things and processes often involves the definition of names. To the combination of the two objection cannot justly be made, so long as it is effected in a way—with a selection of material—that leaves the dictionary essentially a dictionary and not an encyclopaedia. Moreover, the large vocabulary of the general dictionary makes it possible to present certain kinds of encyclopaedic matter with a degree of fulness and a convenience of arrangement which are possible in no single work of any other class. In fact, it may be said that if the encyclopaedic dictionary did not exist it would have to be invented; that its justification is its indispensableness. Not the least of its advantages is that it makes legitimate the use of diagrams and pictorial illustrations, which, if properly selected and executed, are often valuable aids to definition.
On its practical side the advance in lexicography has consisted in the elaboration of methods long in use rather than in the invention of new ones. The only way to collect the data upon which the vocabulary, the definitions and the history are to be based is, of course, to search for them in the written monuments of the language, as all lexicographers who have not merely borrowed from their predecessors have done. But the wider scope and special aims of the new lexicography demand that the investigation shall be vastly more comprehensive, systematic and precise. It is necessary, in brief, that, as far as may be possible, the literature (of all kinds) of every period of the language shall be examined systematically, in order that all the words, and senses and forms of words, which have existed during any period may be found, and that enough excerpts (carefully verified, credited and dated) to cover all the essential facts shall be made. The books, pamphlets, journals, newspapers, and so on which must thus be searched will be numbered by thousands, and the quotations selected may (as in the case of the OxfordNew English Dictionary) be counted by millions. This task is beyond the powers of any one man, even though he be a Johnson, or a Littré or a Grimm, and it is nowassigned to a corps of readers whose number is limited only by the ability of the editor to obtain such assistance. The modern method of editing the material thus accumulated—the actual work of compilation—also is characterized by the application of the principle of the division of labour. Johnson boasted that his dictionary was written with but little assistance from the learned, and the same was in large measure true of that of Littré. Such attempts on the part of one man to write practically the whole of a general dictionary are no longer possible, not merely because of the vast labour and philological research necessitated by modern aims, but more especially because the immense development of the vocabulary of the special sciences renders indispensable the assistance, in the work of definition, of persons who are expert in those sciences. The tendency, accordingly, has been to enlarge greatly the editorial staff of the dictionary, scores of sub-editors and contributors being now employed where a dozen or fewer were formerly deemed sufficient. In other words, the making of a “complete†dictionary has become a co-operative enterprise, to the success of which workers in all the fields of literature and science contribute.
The most complete exemplification of these principles and methods is theOxford New English Dictionary, on historical principles, founded mainly on materials collected by the Philological Society. This monumental work originated in the suggestion of Trench that an attempt should be made, under the direction of the Philological Society, to complete the vocabulary of existing dictionaries and to supply the historical information which they lacked. The suggestion was adopted, considerable material was collected, and Mr Herbert Coleridge was appointed general editor. He died in 1861, and was succeeded by Dr F. J. Furnivall. Little, however, was done, beyond the collection of quotations—about 2,000,000 of which were gathered—until in 1878 the expense of printing and publishing the proposed dictionary was assumed by the Delegates of the University Press, and the editorship was entrusted to Dr (afterwards Sir) J. A. H. Murray. As the historical point of beginning, the middle of the 12th century was selected, all words that were obsolete at that date being excluded, though the history of words that were current both before and after that date is given in its entirety; and it was decided that the search for quotations—which, according to the original design, was to cover the entire literature down to the beginning of the 16th century and as much of the subsequent literature (especially the works of the more important writers and works on special subjects) as might be possible—should be made more thorough. More than 800 readers, in all parts of the world, offered their aid; and when the preface to the first volume appeared in 1888, the editor was able to announce that the readers had increased to 1300, and that 3,500,000 of quotations, taken from the writings of more than 5000 authors, had already been amassed. The whole work was planned to be completed in ten large volumes, each issued first in smaller parts. The first part was issued in 1884, and by the beginning of 1910 the first part of the letter S had been reached.
The historical method of exposition, particularly by quotations, is applied in theNew 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 theCentury 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 theNew English Dictionaryhas 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 Littré. 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.