CRITICAL NOTICES.

Glossary of Northamptonshire Words and Phrases, with Examples of their Colloquial Use, and Illustrations from various Authors: to which are added the Customs of the County. By Anne Elizabeth Baker. 2 vols. Post 8vo. Pp. 849. John Russell Smith, London.

1854.

THIS very excellent work is, as the title implies, a collection of such words and phrases as are used by the wholly illiterate in the county of Northampton-that is, by the great majority of the people. If all the words employed in literature were subtracted from all that are current in the language, the remainder would be found to be immense. This latter portion is by Dr. Johnson denominated "rubbish" which "the lexicographer is doomed to remove from the paths of learning and genius." The value of things, however, is relative. The farmer regards as rubbish that which the botanist classifies with the most profitable productions of the field: and the philologist knows no distinction between words which are heard only in the cottages of the poor and such as are current in the palaces of princes. That portion of our language which is not fixed in literature, undergoes the most rapid decay and development. According to Skinner, no fewer than 2000 or 3000 words utterly perished between the reign of William the Conqueror and his own time. But for the labour of the glossarist, such words (which form connecting links between the successive stages in the history of a language) might be irrecoverably lost. The first in this country who did anything to rescue from oblivion this class of words, whilst still current, was that distinguished naturalist, John Ray, who collected his North country, East country, and South country Words, from the same noble curiosity which led him to make collections of Birds, Fishes, and other objects of natural history: indeed, all these collections were published in the same volume. This was in 1674. For the next whole century, nothing further was done as regards provincial words. In 1775, a little work, entitled "A View of the Lancashire Dialect," by Timothy Bobbin, was printed at Manchester. In 1790, Grose published his "Provincial Glossary;" and since that date, twenty-two other Glossaries, at the least, have appeared, of which Miss Baker's is the last. Although, in the whole series of English Glossaries, not any two bear a greater contrast as regards size than the first and the last, yet in one respect Miss Baker's bears, perhaps, a greater resemblance than any other to that of the illustrious Ray, inasmuch as it is the collection of an antiquary and naturalist, rather than the researches of the etymologist or grammarian. The work before us does not pretend to possess the merits which are expected in a Lexicon; it does not claim to be compared with Junius and Skinner, or with any work whose object is strictly philological. As a production of art, it is not without some great defects; but regarded in its true character, it deserves all the praise and encouragement due to great ability, zeal and diligence.

"The words here brought together, amounting with the phrases to 5000," the author says in her Preface, "have, with very few exceptions, been collected by myself; and having been the companion of my lamented brother in his topographical excursions through the county, during the progress of his History, I was brought into contact with every grade of society from the peer to

the peasant, and thus obtained a facility for observing the verbal peculiarities and customs of each district, which perhaps no other individual ever possessed; while from a love of every branch of natural history, I have always been eager to note the local names connected with it. None could have felt more deeply interested in the pursuit; and what would otherwise have been a toilsome task, has proved to me the pleasurable employment of more than twenty years."

We should have been better pleased if this work had been entitled, "A Cabinet of Archaic and other curious Words and Phrases collected in the County of Northampton between the Years 1830 (?) and 1854, alphabetically arranged and familiarly explained," &c.

It is not pretended that all the words contained in these volumes are peculiar to Northamptonshire. It would indeed be a singular thing if the locus of any word happened to coincide precisely with any political division of the kingdom. It appears, on the contrary, from the references to other Glossaries given at the foot of the words, that most of them have a much wider circulation than the boundaries of the county, some being known all over England, whilst others have a very limited locality, being "retained in one parish, and unknown at the distance of a few miles." When Glossaries for all the counties shall have been published, it may prove interesting to any one who has the requisite taste and leisure, to collate them; and, having ascertained the extent of country over which the several words are respectively used, to trace out on maps the boundary-lines of the most remarkable, as is done to illustrate facts in natural history.

In common with other glossarists, Miss Baker admits a good many words which merit no notice whatever,such as, fishiate (officiate), alablaster (alabaster), darter (daughter), know'd (knew), &c.; but we are glad to see such old forms as fotched (fetched), fund (found), holp (helped), hove (heaved), housen (houses), &c. In these volumes the reader will find, besides much that is amusing and curious, a great many "good old words" that have seen better days, but are now gone down sadly in the world: as an ordinary example, we may give the word ar (ask), for which several ancient authorities are adduced: e. g. "Axe ye and it shall be goven to you" (Wiclif, MS. Matt. vii.); "And for my werke nothing will I axe" (Chaucer's M.D.'s Tale). A similar example is the verb learn, in a transitive sense, which "occurs in the version of the Psalms in the Common Prayer-Book, and in most of the old writers:"

"Them shall he learn his way."-Ps. xxv. 8.

We are tempted to give one other word of the same class, i.e. "HILL, to cover. 'Have you hilled the child up?" Hill it up well.' In accordance with this is the old proverbial expression where there is a large family, 'It takes a deal to hill and to fill,' i.e. to clothe and to feed. A-Sax. helan, celare..... Wiclif makes frequent use of this verb in his translation of the New Testament, and so do many of our early poets.

'The litil schip was hilid with wavis.'-Wiclif, MS., Matt. viii. 'Nakid, and ye hyleden me; syke, and ye visytiden me.'-Ibid. Matt. xxv." It may be remarked that the phrases are generally of less value than the words,-many of them being only unskilful modes of expressing

Compare Johnson's definition of lexicographer: "A harmless drudge that busies himself with tracing the original and detailing the signification of words."

thought, and not more worthy therefore of being preserved than badly spelt words, or any other fantastic things produced by unskilled hands; still, if Miss Baker has collected a good many tares together with the wheat, it is due to her to say, on the other hand, that this only proves the perfection of her work, shewing, as it does, how thoroughly she has gleaned the field.

In conclusion, we heartily recommend these volumes to the reader, as containing valuable materials for the philologist and the grammarian, very numerous illustrations of ancient authors, and copious notices of the local customs of the county; in short, something that will be found interesting to persons of every rank, age and taste. The work is excellently printed as it deserves, and is affectionately dedicated by the author to the memory of her lamented brother, the late George Baker, Esq., the well-known historian of the county,‚—a man whose memory lives in the affections of all who knew him, and who was eminently adorned with the graces of the Christian life.

W. D. J.

Cautions to be observed by Non-subscribing Churches in the Exercise of their Christian Freedom: a Sermon, preached before the Association of Irish Non-subscribing Presbyterians, at its Meeting in Dunmurry, on Wednesday, July 19, 1854. By Classon Porter, President of the Association, and Minister of the First Presbyterian Congregation of Larne. Pp. 24. Belfast. 1854.

MR. CLASSON PORTER utters in this discourse many very important counsels and cautions, some of which might be fitly urged on the ministers of non-subscribing churches in England and Scotland as well as Ireland. Elected as the President of the Association of Irish Non-subscribing Presbyterians, it became him to speak with authority and to caution his younger brethren against the dangers and temptations which peculiarly beset them. He first warns them not to let their good be evil spoken of in relation to their deportment in the ministerial profession. He next cautions them against allowing their minds to be unduly monopolized by any special studies, whether metaphysical or critical, and exhorts them to keep all their studies and inquiries in due subordination to the paramount authority of the gospel. Perhaps the most important counsels contained in this concio ad clerum, are those which relate to the use and abuse of the spiritual liberty which characterizes the non-subscribing Dissenters. How fearlessly and well Mr. Porter speaks on this topic, let the following extract shew:

"We are happily permitted to speak to our people all the words of this life, and candidly to declare to them what appears to us to be the whole counsel of God; the only limitation upon us being the very simple, but the very important one, that the religion which we preach in a Christian pulpit shall be, in some form or other, the Christian religion. Now, this is a mighty privilege, which, however, brings along with it a weighty responsibility, and involves on our parts a very serious offence, if by us it should ever be perverted or abused. In our cases, the danger of abuse arises from the very freedom which we are allowed to exercise in the interpretation of the Gospel. We are, doubtless, at liberty to read the Gospel, by the lamp of human learning, and it is our fortunate prerogative to employ the understandings which God has given us in preaching to our people His Holy Word. But we are to take care never to put the disciple above his master, nor the servant above his lord. We are not to permit the lamp of human learning

to supplant the light of the Gospel, nor are we to suffer the dictates of our understandings to over-ride the Word of God. So long as we profess to be Ministers of Christ, we are to take our religion from the lips of Christ, or his commissioned Apostles; and if ever the dictates of our understandings should clash with the teaching of him, whose ambassadors we profess to be, honour and honesty then require us to choose which of these two we will serve, for we cannot honourably or honestly serve them both. The Gospel, with Christian Ministers, must be the final court of appeal. Our office, Fathers and Brethren, is 'to preach not ourselves, but Christ Jesus the Lord.' Our business is to tell our people, not so much what we think, or what any other man thinks, as what their Saviour says. If we do not like the office, we can leave it. If we do not fancy the business, we can give it up. If, practically ignoring the Gospel of Christ, we choose to form out of our brain a new religion, we may do so. If, remembering the awful responsibility which we thereby incur, we choose to preach to others this home-made religion, we are at liberty to do so. But, in that case, let us be so manly as avowedly to preach ourselves, and not meanly do so, whilst we are professedly preaching Christ Jesus the Lord."-Pp. 14, 15.

The Sabbath Question in relation to the Cabmen's Strike: a Lecture delivered in St. Mark's Chapel, Castle Terrace, Edinburgh, on the Evening of Sunday, December 31, 1854. By John Gordon. Pp. 24. LondonWhitfield.

MR. GORDON thus describes the circumstances which led to the delivery of this lecture:

"In the beginning of December 1854, the Cabmen of Edinburgh gave public notice that they had unanimously resolved to cease driving Cabs on the Lord's day.' This resolution they proceeded to carry into effect by refusing all arrangements which did not involve the cessation of 'Sabbath Cab traffic for any person or any object whatever, except where life or property is at stake.' The authority of the Divine Law' was advanced by them as the first of the 'permanent' reasons on which they rested their demand. On the 20th of December a public meeting was held in Queen-Street Hall, for the purpose of sympathizing with these men; and they were emphatically told, that the strength of their cause depended upon its preserving the strictly religious character which they had given to it."

Mr. Gordon sympathizes with the cabmen in their desire to obtain a release from Sunday duties, but he wisely instructs them as to the proper character of the day, teaching them that a Jewish observance of the Sabbath is not incumbent on Christians, and that the day ought to be spent consistently with the spiritual character of the religion which Christians profess. Those who know how clearly Mr. Gordon thinks, and how powerfully he writes, will be prepared to find in this lecture a wise and instructive handling of his subject, and they will not be disappointed. In his application of the principles unfolded in his lecture to the struggle going on in Edinburgh, Mr. Gordon shews that they affect a much wider and more important question than the cabmen's wishes and interests, and involve the great public questions of Sunday travelling and Sabbatical exactions. He exposes with his accustomed power the inconsistency of the Sabbatical party amongst Christians.

"The carrying out of Sabbatarian notions will be destructive to the benefits which the cabmen are justified in securing. It will, as I have shown, simply throw them out of their trade. Of itself it can do no good to the cause with which it is erroneously connected. All that it is likely to do, or fitted to do, in the way of positive effect, is to give prominence and notoriety

to a doctrine on which those who aspire to rule this movement stake their religious reputation.

"This would not be a satisfactory state of things, if the persons to whom I am referring were prepared honestly to act up to the principle of their own doctrine. It would be but a small consolation to those who suffered injury by that doctrine, to know that they were made the victims of men blindly ignorant of the claims of Christianity and common sense to which they had placed themselves in antagonism. But the conduct of these men is distinguished by anything rather than by its honesty. They are not blind to the claims of the contrary side of the question whenever those claims have to do with their own interests. They can and do make every exception to their professed law which those interests prescribe; and, in this very instance, they put upon the class whom they come forward to defend, a yoke which they will not allow to be put upon their own shoulders.

"It is beyond controversy that they, as a party, have been the great oppressors of the cabmen on this point of Sunday hiring. Driving to church has been the chief occasion of that hiring. Of this the cabmen have formally complained: and this is peculiarly the case in Edinburgh, where Sunday cabhiring is almost confined to church-goers. I say nothing of the hypocritical practices that have been described to us, of slipping religious tracts into the cabmen's hands, and advising them to hasten to church, after paying them for breaking the Sabbath. The plain fact that the breach of the Sabbath, in their sense of it, has been habitually committed, and imposed by this party, is enough for me, without any additional colouring of that kind.

"Now it is no excuse that members of this party express repentance for their sin. That does not touch the point I moot. My point is, that, in its bearing upon themselves, their act was no sin. They were not conscious of it as sin. They committed it, in the belief that they were justified in so doing. Their sin lies elsewhere. It consists in their pretending that what they permitted in their own persons, ought to be forbidden to their neighbours-in their upholding as a Divine Law for society, that which they did not themselves keep as a law at all. That was their sin in past time,-and that sin is perpetuated in their present attempt to subject these cabmen, under pains and penalties of religious reprobation here and hereafter, to a strictness of obedience in which they did not possess, and do not now possess, any conscientious belief."

The Sunday-School Penny Magazine. Published by the Manchester District Sunday-School Association. New Series. Vol. IV. London— E. T. Whitfield.

THIS sound, vigorous and useful little publication, which still enjoys the benefit of the editorship of the Rev. John Wright, of Bury, continues to deserve well of all interested in Sunday-schools. It is plain, practical and eminently religious. We regret to find that the support it receives is less than it ought to be. Is the diminution of subscribers at all connected with the recent establishment of a separate periodical for Teachers? We Unitarians weaken our resources by excessive subdivision. But, whatever the cause, we hope that the evil will be remedied at once. It would be deplorable if this little Magazine, so welcome to our best Sunday scholars, had to be given up.

The Unitarian Almanac for 1855. Edited by John Webb, Resident Secretary to the British and Foreign Unitarian Association. MR. WEBB has introduced several improvements into this useful Almanac, and has edited it with great care. It now well deserves the support of the denomination for whom it has been compiled.