MISCELLANEOUS WORKS

New Zealand Mail, Issue 1682, 25 May 1904, Page 22

MISCELLANEOUS WORKS

“The Making of English.” By the Hon. Henry Bradley, Hon. M. A. Oxon, Hon. Ph. D. Heidelberg, sometime President of the Philological Sorciety. Macmillan and Co., London. Mr H. Bradley, in his essay “The Making of English,” begins by showing, from a comparis.cn with German what kind of language was spoken in England a thousand years ago. He goes on to indicate and classify the causes which by gradual changes have made English what it is today, and the story* is fit to' show how philology, the most arid of sciences, may be made the most interesting kind of history. When he explains, for instance, how the mixture of faces in England naturally tended to diminish graniatical inflexions and reduce words to their simplest form, he states what is obviously true and yet not obvious. Thousands of English people, again, have xirohably never realised how unique is the English system of gender, much less speculated on its origin in a language where nouns were originally masculine or feminine for purely arbitrary reasons. When Mr Bradley comes to treat of word-mak-ing, he touches a subject of living interest again, far more complex than the average man conceives; and his comment. on the inconsistency in such formations as “tree-fern,” “tree-fruit” and “ttoe-frog” is no less full of suggestion than his explanation why we say “divide” hut “revise.” The chapters on changes of meaning (as in the word “fellow”) and on makers of English, which, for instance, assigns to its true owner the phrase “Mrs Grundy,” cover again ground only touched by Archbishop Trench in a book whose charm may be fairly cited as a foretaste of this.

“In Relief of Doubt.” By R. E. Welsh, M.A. H. R. Allenson, London. S. and W. Mackay, Wellington.

The author is up to date in the best sense of the term. As he phrases it, he puts “the case for Christ” in a most convincing and effective form! He is well acquainted with the best modern literature. His power of apt quotation is remarkable. In fact, his book is well worth reading, for the sake of its felicitous quotations. But this is only one of its many merits. The writer is logical, and his arguments proceed with scientific like demonstration. The Bishop of London writes: “I have found it in a great many instances of real service in relief of doubt. . . It deals with that vague atmosphere of doubt which is so common, and dispels it by its clear and pointed arguments; and it is written in a style so racy that none can put it down and call it dull.” There are few hooks on apologetics that will be more useful to thinking young men; and few writers who make Christianity and the things of a higher life appear so rational and attractive.