ABSTRACT
TEN IMP 0 R TAN T T REA TIS E S 67 have to pursue his research elsewhere." In view of this limitation, it must be said that some of the entries in the book are a little surprising, such for instance as the eagle from Harper's Ferry, a fast horse, fingers and toes, hanging shelf, Hartford Convention, higher law, not worth a row of pins, Ohioan, to ask no odds, pipe-laying, Wilmot proviso and wooden nutmegs. These constitute, however, as do the perhaps, 450 words of British origin, a very petty fraction of the entire number, this being about 3500, which are illustrated by no fewer than 14,000 citations, every one accurately dated. It is not strange that they are not very well balanced, regrettably f~w in some cases and rather unnecessarily multiplied in others. Perhaps 61 is not too many under Yankee, considering the importance of the word and the obscurity that surrounds its history; but one must wonder whether it was really worth while to give 33 for half-horse-half-alligator. The wonder, however, is that the compiler got so many together; and he writes me that he has gathered enough material for a third volume, the present work consisting of two. How he got it all I do not know; it is really a marvelous collection to be brought together by a single author; and it throws a flood of light on hundreds of points that were previously obscure. It reminds one in a way of Richardson's English dictionary, the first later than Johnson that was not founded on his labors, and the first to give "a collection of usages, and those usages ex:plained to suit
