The principal deficiency is most likely to exist in the department of Prose Romance; for, though there is very little that is fictitious in ancient literature which is not included in ancient Mythology, yet the field of research continually widens as we come down to modern times, until it seems to be almost boundless. In fixing the limits of the work, the consideration which has determined the admission or rejection of names has not been the intrinsic merit of a book, or the reputation of its writer, but the hold which his characters have taken upon the popular mind. There are many authors of acknowledged genius, and hundreds of clever and prolific writers, who yet have not produced a single character that has so fallen in with the humor, or hit the fancy, of the time, as to have become the subject of frequent allusion. The English romancers and novelists whose creations are most familiarly known and most firmly established are Bunyan, De Foe, Swift, Richardson, Fielding, Smollett, Sterne, Goldsmith, Scott, Dickens, and Thackeray. Many of the portraitures of these writers may be safely presumed to be of more than temporary interest and importance. In regard to other and minor characters, from whatever source derived, it is to be borne in mind that a dictionary is chiefly designed for the use of the existing generation. To what extent names of secondary importance should be included was a question difficult to determine. Opinions from scholars entitled to the highest consideration were about equally divided upon this point. Some favored a selected list of the most important names only: others, and the greater number, recommended a much wider scope. A middle course is the one that has been actually followed. It is evident that many articles which may seem to one person of very questionable importance, if not wholly unworthy of insertion, will be held by another to be of special value, as throwing light upon passages which to him would otherwise be perplexing or obscure.

This Dictionary is, of course, chiefly designed to elucidate the works of British and American writers; but names occur

troduced whenever they have become well known to the public through the medium of translations, or when they seemed, for other reasons, to be worthy of insertion.

In accordance with the plan of the work as indicated in the title, such English, French, German, and other Pseudonyms as are frequently met with in books and newspapers have been given for the benefit of the general reader. No pretense, however, is made to completeness, or even to fullness, in this respect. The bibliographer will find here little or nothing that is new to him; and he must still have recourse to his Barbier, Quérard, Weller, and other writers of the same class. Names like Erasmus, Melanchthon, Mercator, Ecolampadius, &c., assumed by learned men after the revival of classical literature, being, in general, merely the Latin or Greek equivalents of their real names, and being also the only names by which they are now known in history, are excluded as not pertinent to the work. For a similar reason, no notice is taken of such names as Masséna, Metastasio, Philidor, Psalmanazar, Voltaire, &c.

Many eminent characters in political and literary history are often known and referred to by the surnames and sobriquets, or nicknames, which they have borne; as, the Master of Sentences, the Scourge of God, the Stagirite, the Wizard of the North, the Little Corporal, &c. "Nicknames," said Napoleon, "should never be despised: it is by such means mankind are governed." The Dictionary embraces the more important of these; but names like Caligula, Guercino, Tintoretto, &c., which have entirely superseded the real names of the persons designated by them, have not been regarded as properly coming within the purview of the present undertaking. Nor has it, as a rule, been thought advisable to admit simple epithets, such as the Bold, the Good, the Great, the Unready, the Courtier, &c., the omission of which can hardly be considered a defect, since their signification and the reason of their imposition are usually too obvious to excite inquiry. This rule, however, has not been uniformly observed. Here, as elsewhere in the work,

every author of a dictionary or glossary is fairly entitled, and which he is often compelled to use.

A considerable space has been allotted to familiar names of Parties and Sects, of Laws, and of Battles; to poetical and popular names of Seas, Countries, States, Cities, &c.; to ancient geographical names which have become interesting from their revival in poetry or otherwise; and to certain long-established and important Personifications. In general, nicknames of Parties and Sects, such as Chouans, Ghibellines, Gueux, Methodists, Shakers, &c., which have been adopted by those to whom they were at first derisively applied, or which have passed into history and common use as their peculiar and appropriate names, and are to be found in any good Encyclopædia or Manual of Dates, are designedly not included. Most of the historical by-names inserted, such as Day of Dupes, Evil May-day, Wonderful Parliament, Omnibus Bill, Western Reserve, &c., are those which are not to be found under the proper heads in Encyclopædias and other books of reference. Popular designations connected with History and Geography have been freely given in all cases where they seemed to be well settled, and to be fitted to illustrate past or contemporary events or characters.

A slight departure from the strict limits of the plan has been thought allowable in the case of a few quasi-historical, or real but obscure, persons, places, and things, such as Owleglass, John O'Groat, Mrs. Glasse, the Minerva Press, &c., which are often referred to in literature or conversation, and of most of which no account can be obtained except through an amount of research and toil hardly possible to a majority of readers.

Illustrative citations have been copiously given from no small variety of authors; and, as many of them are gems of thought or expression, it is believed that they will be deemed greatly to enhance the value and interest of the work. Some of them, however, have purposely been taken from newspapers and magazines rather than from the classics of the language, in order to show, by such familiar examples, the popularity of the

There are also some quotations which serve no other purpose than that of justifying the insertion of names whose claim to admission might be thought doubtful, if it were not made to appear that they are referred to by authors "known and read of all men." It will probably be observed that Sir Walter Scott is more frequently cited than any other single writer; the reason, however, is not that his works have been examined with more care or to a greater extent than those of some other writers, but merely that he abounds more than most others in allusions, often remote or recondite, but almost always apt and suggestive, — which his unusually tenacious memory enabled him to draw from the stores of a vast and most multifarious reading.

In the explanation of names, statements borrowed in great part from one author have been diligently collated with other statements derived from independent and often widely separated sources; and they have been freely enlarged, abridged, or otherwise modified, according to the necessity of the case, or as would best subserve the purpose of the work. But where the information required has been found already stated in the best way, no hesitation has been felt in making use of the exact language of the writer; and, beyond this general explanation, no acknowledgment of indebtedness seems necessary.

To determine the pronunciation of proper names is unquestionably the most difficult requirement of orthoëpy; and little or no attention has hitherto been paid to the pronunciation of such as are peculiar to the literature of fiction. In the absence, not merely of a trustworthy guide, but of any printed guide at all, the author may sometimes have gone astray; but he has been careful to avail himself of all the information he could obtain. In particular, he has made a thorough examination of such of our vernacular poets as are esteemed classics, and has occasionally adduced passages from their writings to show the accentuation adopted by these "best judges of pronunciation,” as Walker styles them; or, more rarely, to show the sound they assign to particular letters or syllables. If the decisions or

the credit will not be wholly due to him, since he has often profited by the advice and assistance of gentlemen whose superior opportunities of becoming acquainted with the best usage both at home and abroad, and whose critical taste and familiarity with all that pertains to the subject of orthoëpy, afford the assurance that they "speak scholarly and wisely." To indicate with absolute accuracy the peculiar sounds of the principal languages of modern Europe, including the English, would necessarily require an extensive and elaborate system of arbitrary phonic signs; and such a system would be hard to understand, and still harder to remember. It has, therefore, been deemed important not to introduce into this work unnecessary and perplexing discriminations of sounds nearly identical, or to embarrass the inquirer with needless intimations of a pronunciation obvious or already familiar to him. Hence, diacritical marks are sparingly employed, except in the case of unaccented vowels,

which, in our language, are often of doubtful or variable value, and except also in the case of foreign sounds which have no equivalent in English. Although the system of notation made use of is easy to be understood, so far as it applies to most English names, it has been thought desirable to prefix to the work observations on some points of English pronunciation not familiar to the generality of readers, or concerning which professed orthoëpists differ. In regard to the sounds occurring in the work that are peculiar to foreign languages, an explanation is given, in the Introduction, of the mode of their organic formation, or of their position and relations in a scientific classification of spoken sounds. These observations and explanations are contained in distinct paragraphs or sections, consecutively numbered, and are often referred to from the words in the Dictionary.

The Index at the end of the volume forms the counterpart of the Dictionary proper, and will, it is hoped, prove serviceable by enabling an inquirer to ascertain at once the distinguishing epithet or epithets borne by a particular person or