amese. Special dictionaries are of many kinds. There are technical
dictionaries of etymology, foreign words, dialects, secret languages,
slang, neology, barbarous words, faults of expression, choice words,
prosody, pronunciation, spelling, orators, poets, law, music, proper
names, particular authors, nouns, verbs, participles, particles, double
forms, difficulties and many others. Fick's dictionary (Gottingen, 1868,
8vo; 1874-1876, 8vo, 4 vols.) is a remarkable attempt to ascertain the
common language of the Indo-European nations before each of their great
separations. In the second edition of his _Etymologische Forschungen_
(Lemgo and Detmoldt, 1859-1873, 8vo, 7217 pages) Pott gives a
comparative lexicon of Indo-European roots, 2226 in number, occupying
5140 pages.

Methods.

At no time was progress in the making of general dictionaries so rapid
as during the second half of the 19th century. It is to be seen in three
things: in the perfecting of the theory of what a general dictionary
should be; in the elaboration of methods of collecting and editing
lexicographic materials; and in the magnitude and improved quality of
the work which has been accomplished or planned. Each of these can best
be illustrated from English lexicography, in which the process of
development has in all directions been carried farthest. The advance
that has been made in theory began with a radical change of opinion with
regard to the chief end of the general dictionary of a language. The
older view of the matter was that the lexicographer should furnish a
standard of usage--should register only those words which are, or at
some period of the language have been, "good" from a literary point of
view, with their "proper" senses and uses, or should at least furnish
the means of determining what these are. In other words, his chief duty
was conceived to be to sift and refine, to decide authoritatively
questions with regard to good usage, and thus to fix the language as
completely as might be possible within the limits determined by the
literary taste of his time. Thus the Accademia della Crusca, founded
near the close of the 16th century, was established for the purpose of
purifying in this way the Italian tongue, and in 1612 the _Vocabolario
degli Accademici della Crusca_, long the standard of that language, was
published. The Academie Francaise, the first edition of whose dictionary
appeared in 1694, had a similar origin. In England the idea o