The Forgotten Founding Father- Noah Webster (43 page)

Webster soon would have even more to celebrate. Having languished as a persona non grata in his own country for nearly a quarter of a century, he had staged a remarkable comeback. On January 31, 1829,
The Connecticut Mirror
compared Webster to the Roman poet Horace, who had famously created a literary “monument more lasting than steel,” observing, “We are aware of no other publication in this country or in Europe, upon which equal research and labor has ever been expended by a single individual.” A week later, Webster wrote to his son-in-law William Fowler: “My great book seems to command a good deal of attention. Mr. Quincy, now president of Harvard, spent an hour with me on Thursday. He assures me the book will be well reviewed. Chancellor Kent writes me that the best judges of New York speak of it with the highest respect, and he has no doubt it will supersede Johnson. It is considered as a national work.” The timing was much better than for the “compend.” Americans had gotten used to the idea that Johnson’s day had come and gone. The public was also prepared to accept that Webster was not a wild innovator, as his critics had once charged. In April 1829, James L. Kingsley, a Yale Latin professor, wrote a fifty-page review in the
North American Review,
in which he concluded, “The proper effect of the author’s labors in the cause of the language of his country will not fail, sooner or later to be produced. . . . it will be seen in the more correct use of words, in the check which will be put on useful innovations. . . . in the increased respect . . . with which the author will be viewed.” However, this review by Kingsley—a Temple Street neighbor who had provided a blurb three years earlier—left a drained Webster, whose headaches still hadn’t gone away, disappointed. Right after reading it, he complained to Fowler, “This will probably satisfy my friends, but there are some differences between us and in some points the reviewer is certainly wrong. I believe however that I shall let it pass unnoticed.” As more positive feedback came in, Webster could afford to lie low. On May 29, 1829, he reported to Fowler from New York, “From the observations of many literary gentlemen and all I have seen, I find that public sentiment is pretty fully settled as to the substantial merits of my great book.”

The comprehensiveness of Webster’s
American Dictionary
was breathtaking. It contained seventy thousand words, some twelve thousand more than the 1818 version of Johnson edited by Henry John Todd. Webster succeeded in forever expanding the scope of the dictionary. After Webster, all English lexicographers felt duty-bound to capture the language not just of literature, but also of everyday life. According to Webster’s estimate, he added at least four thousand new scientific terms, including, for example, “phosphorescent” and “planetarium.” He also inserted hundreds of commonly used words—“savings-bank,” “eulogist,” “retaliatory,” “dyspeptic,” “electioneer” and “re-organize” all became official. However, his inclusiveness occasionally made readers squirm. Of “co-bishop,” one reviewer wrote, “We consider such a word . . . too vilely formed ever to be tolerated.” In perhaps his greatest contribution, Webster transformed definitions from little more than lists of synonymous terms to tightly knit mini-essays, which highlighted fine distinctions. Compare, for example, Webster and his predecessor on “ability”:

Webster was also the first lexicographer to turn his own examples into a central component of definitions. To explain morality, he noted, “We often admire the politeness of men whose
morality
we question.”

While Webster improved upon Johnson, he also borrowed liberally from his rival. Based upon an examination of both Webster’s copy of Johnson’s 1799 dictionary and the 1828 dictionary, scholar Joseph Reed concludes that about one-third of Webster’s definitions demonstrate the influence of Johnson. This figure includes a few direct transcriptions—sometimes without attribution—as well as numerous cases where Webster made slight alterations. Citing Reed’s research, critics have occasionally tried to downplay Webster’s achievement. But such attacks, which tend to be mounted by Johnsonians, are unwarranted. After all, as Reed concedes, “Borrowing—even plagiarism—is no sin to lexicographers.” Particularly in the days before committees assembled dictionaries, compilers often recycled the work of one another. Johnson, for example, borrowed heavily from his direct predecessor, Nathan Bailey, author of
An Universal Etymological Dictionary,
originally published in 1721. Moreover, Reed himself is also struck by the remarkable breadth and originality of Webster’s work, adding, “Webster did more than perhaps any other lexicographer to initiate the encyclopedic dictionary.”

Since his return from Europe, Webster had also reworked his dictionary to give it a purely American flavor. To broadcast his intentions, he slapped on a highly patriotic preface. While he still hoped to market the book in Britain—and was no longer the anti-English rebel of the speller—he wholeheartedly embraced the goal that had first motivated him nearly thirty years earlier: “It is not only important, but in a degree necessary, that the people of this country, should have an
American Dictionary
of the English Language; for although the body of the language is the same as in England, and it is desirable to perpetuate that sameness, yet some differences must exist. Language is the expression of ideas; and if the people of one country cannot preserve an identity of ideas, they cannot retain an identity of language.”

Citing Johnson’s famous phrase, “The chief glory of a nation arises from its authors,” Webster sought to celebrate America’s founders—Franklin, Washington, Adams, Jay, Madison, Hamilton and Marshall—as “pure models of genuine English.” He also felt it necessary to clarify the key terms of American politics. “The judges of the supreme court of United States,” read one of his examples, “have the power of determining the
constitutionality
of laws.” As in his speller a half century earlier, he also stuck in countless references to American locales. In the entry for the verb “view,” which he defined as “to survey,” he alluded to a favorite spot in western Massachusetts: “We ascended Mount Holyoke and
viewed
the charming landscape below.”

Webster’s “great book,” like that of his idol, was also part autobiography. Just as Samuel Johnson had expressed his feelings toward Lord Chesterfield by defining “patron” as “a wretch who supports with insolence, and is paid with flattery,” Webster also repeatedly dragged in incidents from his own life. In the definition for “embalm,” he alluded to his own devastating loss: “The memory of my beloved daughter is
embalmed
in my heart.
N. W
.” And under “when,” he recalled his near-meeting with Washington’s adopted son: “We were present
when
General Lafayette embarked at Havre for New York.” Likewise, to illustrate the familiar meaning of “absent”—“not at home”—Webster mentioned an excuse that he himself often resorted to: “The master of the house is
absent
. In other words, he does not wish to be disturbed by company.” While Webster didn’t prescribe the right way to use language, he did prescribe the right way to live. The definitions frequently had a didactic tone that reflected Webster’s values, particularly his Christian faith. Under “seducer,” Webster opined, “The
seducer
of a female is a little less criminal than the murderer”; and under “seduction,” he volunteered some homespun advice: “the best safeguard is principle, the love of purity and holiness, the fear of God and reverence for his commands.”

While Webster’s
Synopsis
was not appended to the dictionary as he had hoped, his dubious etymological ideas made an occasional appearance. As in his “compend,” he insisted on some archaic Anglo-Saxon spellings, such as “bridegoom” for “bridegroom.” Though the former term is closer to the Anglo-Saxon “brideguma,” this entry struck most readers as ridiculous. Citing this example, Britain’s
Westminster Review,
which considered Webster’s work “one of a very important character,” accused him of having “a few words in which he is very adventurous in his orthography.” In a handful of entries, Webster also left in incomprehensible references to the unpublished
Synopsis
. Under the verb “heat,” in a long paragraph of fanciful etymology which came before the definition, Webster noted, “See Class Gd. No 39, and others. It may be further added that in W[elsh]
cas
is hatred, a
castle,
from the sense of separating;
casau,
to hate; and if this is of the same family, it unites
castle
with the foregoing words.” Such “choice sentences” led another British periodical,
The Quarterly Review,
to issue one of the few pans, “There is everywhere a great parade of erudition and a great lack of real knowledge.” But most Americans were forgiving of the lexicographer’s odd notions. In 1829, the
Norwich Courier
observed, “Noah Webster, thinking that molasses ‘by any other name would taste as sweet,’ has in his new Dictionary spelt it Melasses. Notwithstanding this high authority, it is extremely questionable whether any Yankee can be made to swallow such a word with hasty pudding.”

Webster suddenly commanded respect from America’s literati, who had long abused him. Both financial security and lionization were soon to follow. In a speech at Yale, his old friend James Kent, the former chief justice of the New York State Supreme Court, compared his dictionary to the Parthenon and the pyramids of Egypt. Webster will, Kent declared, “transmit his name to the latest posterity. It will dwell on the tongues of infants as soon as they have learned to lisp their earliest lessons. . . . This Dictionary and the language which it embodies, will also perish; but it will . . . only go with
the solemn temples and the great globe itsel f
.” In a letter to Harriet, Webster dismissed Kent’s remarks on his “great book” as “flights of imagination,” but he savored every drop of praise.

O
n October 29, 1829, the seventy-one-year-old Webster and his wife celebrated their “great anniversary.” “Forty years ago today,” Rebecca wrote that afternoon to Eliza, then living in Greenfield, Massachusetts, “your father and I joined our hands in marriage, and I will venture to say, few have jogged on together more harmoniously.” To mark the occasion, Rebecca prepared a roast turkey and a host of desserts, including Webster’s favorite, custard. Harmony would continue to prevail in the Webster family, which eventually consisted of more than three dozen grandchildren, but it typically came at the expense of catering to the aging patriarch’s wishes. Webster made sure that the entire family continued to revolve around him. While his two sons-in-law, William Fowler and Chauncey Goodrich, along with his son, William, helped him manage his vast publishing empire, he never gave them any real authority. “We are treated like boys and girls,” Emily, his eldest, once complained to Harriet. And whenever someone in the family struck out on his own, Webster became uncomfortable. In April 1838, when it became clear that William Ellsworth was to be elected Connecticut’s governor, Webster joked with Emily, “We shall treat you just as we used to do, and we shall often mistake and call your husband
Mr
. Ellsworth.”

In 1837, Emily Webster (1790-1861) published a book of short stories,
Wild Flowers
. That year, her father wrote to her, “Only think. NW’s eldest daughter commenced authoress. It stands you in hand to write pretty well, because the public will expect it.”

Despite his phenomenal success, Webster was not a man at peace with either himself or the world. Though he was now less “peevish” than in middle age, he was often seething. He detested President Andrew Jackson as the second coming of Jefferson. In the 1832 election, he supported the third-party candidate William Wirt, as he no longer wanted anything to do with either of the major political parties. By 1836, as he confided to Fowler, he also looked down on his fellow Americans: “I would, if necessary, become a troglodyte, and live in a cave in winter rather than be under the tyranny of our degenerate rulers. But I have not long to witness the evils of the unchecked democracy, the worst of tyrannies. . . . We deserve all our public evils. We are a degenerate and wicked people.”

While Webster’s reactionary rants were now a source of embarrassment to his friends and family, he remained as forward-thinking as ever on matters of language. That same year, as the last of the twenty-five thousand copies of the first edition of his complete dictionary were sold, he began making plans to publish a revision. To Fowler, he explained, “I have improvements to make and these are necessary to sustain the reputation of the work, which must keep pace with the language.” In contrast to the various abridgements, the complete dictionary was not a big money-maker but a labor of love. Much to the consternation of the rest of the family, in 1838, the octogenarian would mortgage his Temple Street home to finance a second edition. The inveterate definer could not stop. As he was finishing this revised dictionary in 1841, he declared, “[Though] I desire . . . to be relieved from the toil of study and business . . . I am so accustomed to action that I presume inaction would be tedious and perhaps not salutary.”