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THE

MUSEUM

OF

FOREIGN LITERATURE, SCIENCE, AND ART.

VOL. X.-NEW SERIES.

JANUARY TO APRIL, 1840.

WHOLE NUMBER.-VOLUME XXXVIII.

PHILADELPHIA:

PUBLISHED BY E. LITTELL & CO.

AND BY CARVILL AND CO. NEW YORK; OTIS, broaders and Co. BOSTON;

N. HICKMAN, BALTIMORE.

1840.

Eych.
7-22-1927

TABLE OF CONTENTS.

Arranged under the Names of the Works from which they an taken.

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MUSEUM

OF

Foreign Literature, Science and Art.

JANUARY, 1840.

From the Edinburgh Review.

A Dictionary of the Anglo-Saxon Language; with a
Preface on the Origin and Connexion of the Germanic
Tongues, a Map of Languages, and the Essentials of
Anglo-Saxon Grammar. By Rev. T. BosWORTH,

LL.D. 8vo. London: 1838.

paratively little trouble, must necessarily involve some attention to the ancient language. Of the extent to which the Anglo-Saxon modifies the structure in which it contributes to its vocabulary, those who and grammatical peculiarities of modern English, and have paid no attention to the subject are little aware. Nor, indeed, has the subject ever been treated with THIS work will be highly acceptable to Anglo- the fulness it deserves. We shall make no apology, Saxon scholars; nor are these the only persons to therefore, for the following attempt to determine with whom it is likely to prove of value. There are, or at some approach to precision, the proportions in which all events soon will be many, by no means ambitious the different elements of our language are mingled; of achieving the fame of profound Anglo-Saxon and especially the degree in which the Anglo-Saxon scholarship, to whose library a Saxon and English predominates over the rest. Lexicon of moderate size and reasonable price will be welcome addition. As this may appear a some what parodoxical opinion, we crave leave to offer our easons in support of it, before we proceed to estimate he merits of Dr. Bosworth's Dictionary, as compared with any previous work of a similar kind.

We must premise, that when we speak of English words derived from Anglo-Saxon or Latin, or any other language, we mean immediately derived. We make this remark because there are many words derived, historically speaking, from the Anglo-Saxon, which, from their strong resemblance to words Profound Anglo-Saxon scholarship, has ever been, of the same meaning in the Latin, might be and in all probability ever will be, a very rare com- supposed to have had a classical origin. We modity in the market of letters. Indeed a profound are far enough from denying-what the researchknowledge of any dead language will always be a ra- es of modern philology have clearly provedrity, if it can reward our industry only by a litera- that there is a close connexion amongst all those ture so scanty and so rude as that of the Anglo-Sax-languages out of which our own has been formons; and it may therefore seem, at first sight, as ed: that is, between the classical and Tentonie: unreasonable to expect any considerable patronage for nay, that the still subsisting resemblances amongst a work like the present, as for a Dictionary of some languages far more dissimilar than these, justify us dialect of Kamschatka or Madagascar. Still, if we in believing that they all had a common origin. If mistake not, the day is not far distant when it will this be the case, it is by no means surprising that be considered disgraceful to a well-bred English- there should often be a strong resemblance between man-utterly disgraceful to a man who makes the words, where there has been no derivation of the one slightest pretensions to scholarship-to be ignorant, from the other. Two branches of a tree may be peras multitudes (otherwise well informed) now are of the history and structure of the English tongue; and above all, of the precise relations of modern English to that ancient dialect of the great Teutonic family, which has ever been, and still is, incomparably the most important element in its composition.*

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fectly independent of one another, though both must ultimately come from a common root; and there are other ties of consanguinity besides that between parent and child. Where there is a strong family likeness between two individuals, we may infer con nexion of some kind; but if they are of the same age, no one suspects them to be father and son. This seems to us a sufficient account of those resemblances between Latin and the Teutonic languages, which induced Mr. Gilchrist to form his extravagant hypothesis as to the immediate derivation of the latter languages from the Latin. The resemblances in question are far too limited and partial to justify such a supposition; while they are just as extensive as might be expected on the supposition that all lau

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