The hand: its mechanism and vital endowments as evincing design / [Sir Charles Bell].

  • Bell, Charles, Sir, 1774-1842.
Date:
1834
Catalogue details

Licence: Public Domain Mark

Credit: The hand: its mechanism and vital endowments as evincing design / [Sir Charles Bell]. Source: Wellcome Collection.

    3/372
    pages, price 3s. 6d. each, to be continued Monthly: of A NEW DICTIONARY OF THE ENGLISH LANGUAGE By CHARLES RICHARDSON. REVIEWS & CRITICAL NOTICES. “ Mr. Pickering has just put forth a New Dictionary of the English Language, which, whether we regard its extraordinary cheapness, or the extra- ordinary labour and ability by which it is characterised, bids fair to rival all similar publications. The work is to be completed in Thirty Parts, each Part to contain Eighty 4to pages, with three columns of Diamond type upon each page; the meaning of each word is illustrated by a greater number of passages from standard English writers than is to be found in any similar work ; and the reading necessary for the supply of this immense body, must have been the labour of years. A part of this Dictionary appeared, we find, in the Encyclopedia Me- tropolitana, and was spoken of by the Quarterly and other reviews, as the greatest lexicographical achievement of the age. In its complete form it will be, to judge from the sample before us, a work of unrivalled ability, labour and utility.”— Old England. “ The compiler, who has already approved his ability for this work by what he has contributed of it to the Encyclopedia Metropolitana, justly observes, that Dr. Johnson did not execute his own project, and that the desideratum of a Dictionary to ‘ exhibit, first, the natural and primitive signification of words, then give the consequential, and then the metaphorical meaning, and the quotations to be arranged according to the ages of the authors,’ is, at the distance of nearly ninety years, still more to be desiderated now, than in 1747, when the learned lexicographer made his proposition to Lord Chesterfield. Mr. Richardson derives considerable aid from Horne Tooke’s philological labours ; and from the part before us, we would anticipate a useful and interesting work.”—Literary Gazette. “ The arrangement is founded upon the plan which Dr. Johnson put forth as the proper mode of proceeding with his great undertaking, though he did not, in the execution, adhere to his own scheme. The task which our great philo- loger left unfulfilled has been performed by Mr. Richardson, with a patient labour in research and collection, which Johnson, we suspect, never possessed, and with means at his disposal, by the resuscitation of our ancient writers, which Johnson certainly never had. Judging from the specimen before us, the result will be to present the world with the most complete Dictionary that ever was published, as regards the etymology and primitive meaning of the words, the successive growth of their secondary significations, the gradual advance and changes of the language, the vast body of quotations from all authors, whether ancient or modern, and, in consequence, the skeleton history of the English language which it indirectly presents; it will, in short, be a work indispensable to every one who is curious in his mother tongue, and without which no library can be considered complete. Though we have limited our praise to the specimen before us, this was scarcely needed. The Dictionary has already appeared as the Lexicon in the Encyclopedia Metropolitana, where it excited considerable attention, and drew forth much praise. But in its independent form it will be increased by upwards of a third, be subject to a careful revision, be enriched by the author’s additional knowledge, and simplified by his increased experience; thus combining, as it were, the freshness of a novelty with the mechanical advantage attendant upon a new edition.”—Spectator. u It would be impossible to speak of the value of this work within the short space of a literary notice ; but thus much we can assure our readers, that in its plan it is novel, and more comprehensive than any ol its predecessors; that the quotations from the earliest poets, chroniclers, divines, &c. arranged in chrono- logical order, in illustration of different words, supply an admirable view of the progress of the English tongue; that reference is made to chapter and verse for