9 OCTOBER 1915, Page 22

SOME BOOKS OF THE WEEK.

[Notice in this column doss not necessarily preclude subs/vent review.]

The new section of The Oxford English. Dictionary (Oxford University Press, 2s. 6d.) contains a short prefatory appreciation of the late Sir James Murray, who has died since the issue of the last section. We are reminded that his great wish was that he should live to finish the Dictionary on his eightieth birthday in 1917; and though that wish is unfulfilled, less than a tenth part of the work remains to he done :—

" Sir James Murray at the beginning laid the linos and drew tho plan; in the prosecution of the work, when it became clear that it must be shared, his amazing capacity for unremitting labour enabled him to take more than an equal part, and the volumes produced by himself show characteristic excellences which cannot be exactly matched, though they may be rivalled by merits of another kind. He will not write the last pages, but more than that of any other man his name will be associated with the long ancl efficient working of the groat engine of research by which the Dictionary has been produced."

The present section includes the words from " Standard " to "Stead," eight hundred and forty-two in number, and has been edited by Dr. Bradley.