Lexicographers and Library Treasures

"REFERENCE, s. (from refer.)

Relation; respect; view toward, allusion to. Raleigh."  Samuel Johnson, Dictionary

King George III's Library at the British Library, London  © British Library

For many of the books I pull from the shelf for reference --  like Shakespeare, Evelyn, Johnson, Dickens, Pevsner --  I have a clear image of the author,  but several I rely on equally are just names, like Roget, Kennedy, and Brewer, so this blog celebrates these indispensable nineteenth century scholars.

"The man is not wholly evil, he has a Thesaurus in his cabin."  J.M. Barrie on Captain Hook

Peter Mark Roget, physician, writer and scholar, was born in Soho in January 1779, graduating from Edinburgh in 1798.  He travelled on the continent and worked as tutor and physician in many places, finally settling in London as a professor of physiology, where he was an active member of the Royal Society and many other scientific institutions.  

Very much a child of the Enlightenment, in 1825 he contributed to the very early development of moving pictures with his observations on the retina's retained images,  and his work on natural selection in Animal and Vegetable Physiology,  published in 1833-4, was a forerunner to Darwin.

His early life was very unsettled; several close relatives died young or suffered mental problems, and he found list-making kept away depression.  As early as 1805 he was cataloguing words and phrases, and in his retirement he worked on his Thesaurus of English Words and Phrases, published in 1852 and never since out of print.  What writer, reader, or crossword devotee does not possess a well-thumbed copy on their bookshelf?

Strahov Monastery Library, Prague

The Theosophical Hall contains a vast collection of Bibles

Benjamin Hall Kennedy  Born in 1807, Benjamin H. Kennedy was a contemporary of Darwin at school.   An outstanding classical scholar at St. John's College, Cambridge, he took holy orders in 1824, and was a well-regarded headmaster at Shrewsbury School from 1836-1866.  His retirement also saw the first publication of his Latin Primer for Schools. Kennedy was a keen supporter of education for women and campaigned for the women students of Girton and Newnham to have full access to the University lectures and examinations.   It is not surprising then, that in 1888 he relied on his two daughters'  help for the revised edition of the Primer;  with its new rhyming mnemonics to guide even the dullest scholar, it became an indispensable success. To this day I can quote the 5 line verse for spotting the ablative absolute, without (until I looked it up) remembering what was an ablative absolute. (and see millroadcemetery.org.uk)

The Teleki-Bolyai Library, Targu-Mures, Romania

In this eighteenth century public library founded by Count Samuel Teleki, chancellor of Transylvania,  in 1802, you can see works by Galileo, Descartes, Locke and Newton, as well as books they will have studied.

Ebenezer Cobham Brewer  Born in Norwich in 1810, Brewer graduated in law from Trinity Hall, Cambridge; he then taught at his father's school and wrote textbooks on education, literature and science.  He travelled and lived in Paris for six years the 1850s, where he married, and then concentrated on his writing.
He began his "treasury of literary bric-a-brac", The Dictionary of Phrase and Fable in the 1860s, publishing it in 1870, and revising it in 1894.  It runs from A: "modified from the Hebrew aleph = an ox",  to Z: " Zulfagar, Ali's sword" .  As he explained, "I have always read with a slip of paper and a pencil at my side, to jot down whatever I think may be useful to me, and these jottings I keep sorted in different lockers."  His methodical labour and lively mind created a beguiling treasury for us, as well as a lasting work of reference.

The New York Public Library Reading Room

As well as its inspiring architecture and collections, it has a wonderful collection of authors' manuscripts, including A.A. Milne's "Winnie the Pooh".

RUBIFICK

"  RUBIFICK,  a. [ruber and facio, Lat.]  Making red.  Grew.
   RUBIFORM, a. [ruber Lat. and form.]  having the form of red.    Newton.
   To RUBIFY, v. a.  To make red.   Brown.
   RUBIOUS,   a.  [rubeus. Lat.]  Ruddy; red; not used.  Shakespeare.
   RUBRICATED,  a. [rubrica, Lat.]  Smeared with red.
   RUBRICK, s.  [rubrique, Fr. rubrica, Lat.]    Directions printed in books of law and in prayer books;      so termed, because they were originally distinguished by being in red ink.    Stilling.
   RUBRICK, a.  Red.    Newton.
   To RUBRICK,  v. a.  [from the noun.]  To adorn with red. "

Dictionary of the English Language  Dr. Samuel Johnson
   

Gough Square to Gunpowder Alley

For the shade of the author of Rasselas still seems to haunt the scenes of his Titanic labours, and his ponderous but homely and temperate rejoicings.  Every court and alley whispers of books and the making of books; formes of type trundled noisily on trollies by inksmeared boys, salute the wayfarer at odd corners, piles of strawboard, rolls or bales of paper, drums of printing-ink or roller composition stand on the pavement outside dark entries; basement windows give glimpses into Hadean caverns tenanted by legions of printer's devils, and the very air is charged with the hum of press  and with odours of glue and oil.  The entire neighbourhood is given to the printer and binder;..."

Dr. Thorndyke and the Eye of Osiris  R. Austin Freeman

Pirates

"Pirate s. [Gk, pirate, Fr.]

1. A sea robber.
2. Any robber, particularly a bookseller who seizes the copies of other men."

A Dictionary of the English Language  Samuel Johnson, LL.D.

Prince Giglio and the Fairy Blackstick's Bag

"He took a modest lodging opposite the Schools, paid his bill at the inn, and went to his apartment with his trunk, his carpet-bag, and not forgetting we may be sure, his other bag.

When he opened his trunk, which the day before he had filled with his best clothes, he found it contained only books,  and in the first of them which he opened there was written--
    'Clothes for the back, books for the head;
    Read, and remember them when they are read.'

And in his bag, when Giglio looked in it, he found a student's cap and gown, a writing-book full of paper, an inkstand, pens, and a Johnson's dictionary, which was very useful to him, as his spelling had been sadly neglected.

So he sat down and worked very, very hard for a whole year, during which 'Mr. Giles' was quite an example to all the students in the University of Bosforo."

The Ballad of the Rose and the Ring  William M. Thackeray

Dr. Johnson's House

"Mrs Rowell ...then unfolded a chapter in the history of Gough Square that would have startled Boswell and the Doctor.  She was living there as a caretaker...   On December 29, 1940, when the bombs began to fall, an oil-drum from a neighbouring printer's-ink factory was hurled through the air and lodged itself on the roof.  No one had any time to think how appropriate it was, or how ironic, if you like, that a printer's-ink factory might have been the means of destroying the house of Dr. Johnson, for the roof-beams were crackling and blazing and the tiles were falling into the room below.  This fire was put out by the firemen and the caretakers, and in the morning it was seen that the beams, though charred, were still sound.  The house was in grave peril on five subsequent occasions.  It was, of course, closed to the public,  and,  as the Blitz developed,  it became a rendezvous for the Auxiliary Fire Service.  How Dr. Johnson, that irrepressible clubman,  would have loved that!  It is almost too perfect to be true.

...If ever the ghost of old Sam Johnson came back to London, it must surely have been during this time, though oddly enough, no fireman is reported to have encountered a bulky figure on the stairs, or to have been addressed as 'sir' by someone who offered to relieve him at his post."

In Search of London  H.V. Morton