andums, mercurial, metropolis, miserably, mindful, meridian, medal,
metaphysics, ministration, mimic, misapply, misgovernment, misquote,
misconstruction, monstrously, monster-like, monstrosity, mutable,
moneyed, monopoly, mortise, mortised, muniments_, to _moderate_, and
_mother-wit_ These words, and five thousand more equally excellent,
which have remained part of the language of the English-speaking world
for three centuries since Shakespeare, and will no doubt continue to
belong to it for ever, we are apt to declare he should have worn in
their newest gloss, not cast aside so soon. Why was he as shy of
repeating any one of them even once as Hudibras was of showing his
wit?--

Who bore it about,
As if afraid to wear it out
Except on holidays or so,
As men their best apparel do.

This question, why a full third of Shakespeare's verbal riches was never
brought to light more than once, is probably one which nobody can at
present answer even to his own satisfaction. Yet the phenomenon is so
remarkable that every one will try after his own fashion to account for
it. My own attempt at a provisional explanation I will present in the
latter part of this paper.

Let us first, however, notice another question concerning the _apa?
?e?? mue?a_--namely, that which respects their _origin_. Where did they
come from? how far did Shakespeare make them? and how far were they
ready to his hand? No approach to answering this inquiry can be made for
some years. Yet as to this matter let us rejoice that the unique
dictionary of the British Philological Society is now near publication.
This work, slowly elaborated by thousands of co-workers in many devious
walks of study on both sides of the Atlantic, aims to exhibit the first
appearance in a book of every English word. In regard to the great bulk
of Shakespeare's diction it will enable us ten years hence to determine
how much of it was known to literature before him, and how much of it he
himself gathered or gleaned in highways and byways, or caused to ramify
and effloresce from Saxon or classical roots and trunks, thus "endowing
his purposes with words to make them known." Meantime, we are left to
conjectures. As of his own coinage I should set down such vocables as
_motley-minded, mirth-moving, mockable, marbled, martyred, merriness,
marrowless, mightful, multipotent, masterdom, monarchize_, etc. etc.

But, however much of his linguistic treasury Shakespeare shall be pro