The most notable characteristic of Bradley's review was that it managed to be admiring and yet neither slavish nor sycophantic in its admiration. To be sure, there was no doubt that Bradley liked the book: `the present specimen affords every reason to hope that the skill of Dr Murray and his assistants will prove equal to the arduous task which lies before them,' he said in his first paragraphs. It could be confidently asserted, Bradley continued, `that if the level of excellence achieved in this opening part be sustained throughout, the completed work will be an achievement without parallel in the lexicography of any living language'.
He used the essay to work his way in detail through the design and structure of the book. Nothing much was quoted before what Murray chose as the linguistically epoch-changing year of ad 1150—when standard English had finally wrested itself free from the strictures of Anglo-Saxon—this, Bradley noted with singular approval. The pages were far more elegantly designed, he said, than the typographic `chaos' of M. Littré's French dictionary. Murray had been much more sensible in his relatively economical use of quotations—he had been wise not to pile on simply repetitious examples, as Littré had done (we can feel the anti-Gallic gorge rising in Bradley's throat), and he cited, in a sideswipe at the Frenchman, his `twenty-three numbered senses of eau'—which just had to be an `over-refinement, which is rather confusing than helpful'.
He was not entirely enamoured, however, of some of the lesser details of Murray's work. He chided the editor gently for somehow failing to include all the phrases with which he, Bradley, was familiar—why was the phrase acting edition not included? What about free agent, for example? Where was alive and kicking? The idiomatic nature of the phrase old age was not explained, and Bradley could not fathom why. And as for Murray's habit of including a very large number of quotations from the two or three years before publication—what, pray, was the point? `It seems to savour too much of “bringing the work down to the latest date” '—a phrase which critics of Bradley's essay might think was a piece of verbal clumsiness for `bringing it up to date', until we learn (from the modern OED) that the phrase up to date did not itself become current until around 1888, four years after Bradley wrote his review.
There were other cavils. Bradley wondered if it was right to remark that the word anemone signified `daughter of the wind', since the Greek suffix was not, he said with the casual confidence of one who knew, `exclusively patronymic'. The first syllable of alpaca was probably not Arabic, as Murray had written—and Bradley went on to argue why it was much more likely, in fact, to be Spanish. Nor was the Academy's essay entirely sure that it was wise of Murray to quote himself (from the Mill Hill school magazine) using the word anamorphose; warming to this theme, and slightly facetiously, Bradley then wondered whether Murray might do likewise in Part II, when it came to the word aphetize, a favourite word of Murray's, and one he was often heard to use when making speeches devoted to etymology and philology. 9
All told, the 4,500-word review, with its broad and measured praise and its cleverly detailed and quietly stated criticism, was very evidently the work of a figure of rare intelligence and judgement. The tone of the piece seems to have been unaffected by Bradley's obvious delight at seeing the book in print at last, and by his expectation that it would, when completed, be a masterpiece. It was, in short, just the kind of review that any intelligent editor might dream of—and it had a singular impact on James Murray.
It made him want, all of a sudden, to accomplish two related things. He wanted to find out who on earth this unknown and mysterious writer for the Academy was. And once he had found that out, he wanted to hire him. A man of his evident perspicacity, and fondness for the book, should be taken on to help. So Murray wrote from Mill Hill to Fulham, commended and thanked Bradley for his review—and then without further ceremony began to ask him a number of complex problems of etymology of words that began with B. Bradley wrote back, unfazed and helpful; and in June he wrote to Murray asking whether, in the event of some vacancy in the Scriptorium, there might be a place for him on the staff. The job had to be full-time, and salaried, he said: he had a wife and four children, and the life he could live on the proceeds of freelancing was a modest one indeed. He needed a sense of security.
And in due course, Henry Bradley did indeed join the staff of the Dictionary. He eventually presided over vast numbers of pages, becoming the most critically important of Murray's colleagues. In time, with Murray's death, he succeeded him as senior editor. Yet history has perhaps been less kind to him than he deserves: fate has consigned him to remain permanently memorialized in Murray's shadow, and his reputation, by comparison with that of Murray, has never been able truly to flourish. More of the details of his work belong to the next chapter: suffice to say here that his nearly 40-year connection with the Dictionary began modestly enough, with Mr Cotton's invitation in February 1884 to write an experimental book review for his small London literary magazine. The story of what then befell Henry Bradley should serve as encouragement for today's writers, one might think, and prompt them to consider the possibilities and opportunities that might yet come from the vagaries of the freelance life.
There was one unanticipated reward for Murray, one that was specifically timed to coincide with the appearance of Part I. Henry Hucks Gibbs had been working behind the scenes for the past year, trying to persuade the government, no less, to help alleviate Murray's troubling personal financial position. (Furnivall, Trench, and Prince Louis-Lucien Bonaparte had added their support to the campaign as well.) And in the end, it worked. At the beginning of 1884 Gladstone, the Prime Minister, even though he was then deeply embroiled in the nation-gripping saga involving General Gordon of Khartoum, 10 agreed to award the editor a pension from the Civil List—even though the List was a body set up in the late seventeenth century to pay the costs of the Royal Family and high officials of the government, like judges and ambassadors. The idea of paying the editor of a book was eccentric, to say the least—but Gladstone was clearly sufficiently impressed with the worth of what Murray was doing to persuade Queen Victoria to make an exception.
I am directed [the Downing Street private secretary wrote] to acquaint you that having given further consideration to the question of affording you additional aid in the work upon which you engaged of editing the New English Dictionary, he has received the Queen's approval to his recommendation that you should be granted a pension from the Civil List of £250 a year. He hopes that this proposal may be agreeable to you, and he wishes you all success in your important task.
Murray was thrilled, and wrote back to Gladstone saying that he accepted happily, though not for himself, but for his staff—the number of which he would now be able to increase. Hucks Gibbs added to his improving state by setting up an Indemnity Fund in Murray's name, to which others of his admirers contributed. And Oxford, too, chipped in, by revising its budget to make a total sum of £1,750 available each year. Of that sum, £1,175 would cover the wages of up to eight assistants. Seventy-five pounds would go for postage and stationery. And fully £500 would be earmarked for the editor—which meant that, together with the subvention from the Civil List, Murray would earn the not-so-trifling sum of £750 a year. Back in 1879 it had been suggested that he might be earning one pound for every page of the book: if he could keep to the Oxford target of 700 pages each year, then he would indeed be earning just what had been forecast, back when he had first signed the contract to start his work.