Suppl.POSTSCRIPT
The present Part completes the publication of the MS. materials which Mr. Lane left for the continuation of his Lexicon. The incompleteness of these materials has already been explained in the Preface to Part V. My original intention was to compile the missing articles from Mr. Lane's MS. copy of the Táj el-ʼAroos, with the addition of such notes as he had himself prepared during the progress of the work. This intention, however, was modified when the publication of the Táj el-ʼAroos at Booláḳ deprived Mr. Lane's MS. copy of its peculiar importance. The text can now be consulted by any scholar for himself, and to offer a bare translation of it, in a Lexicon intended mainly for the use of scholars, would be superfluous. The great value of Mr. Lane's work lies not so much in his translations from standard works of Arabic lexicography, as in the comments and explanations which he was able to add from his own profound knowledge of the language and its literature. Any scholar can translate the Táj el-ʼAroos: but none could have elucidated the obscurities of the native lexicographers with the precision and illumination which characterize Mr. Lane's commentary. The translation from the Táj el-ʼAroos has therefore been abandoned, and the Supplement appended to the present Part, instead of containing all the articles omitted from Parts V.-VIII., includes only such notes as Mr. Lane had made from time to time with a view to the eventual writing of these articles. These notes are not to be accepted as the final decision of their writer, far less as finished or even approximately complete articles. They have not enjoyed the benefit of his revision, and many of them are clearly the record of contemporary speech, which he would doubtless have excluded from a Lexicon of the classical language. Nevertheless, Mr. Lane's habitual accuracy and caution are sufficient guarantees that these notes were not made without careful deliberation. They contain many significations which are not to be found in the ordinary dictionaries; and the numerous cross-references, which I have verified, will prove of service, and to some extent supply the want of more complete explanations, especially for the commonest meanings of words. The notes refer chiefly to the less common meanings, and those most familiar to the student will often be found missing.
With regard to the" Book II." which Mr. Lane contemplated, and which was to contain rare words and explanations, I am obliged to admit that the materials are wanting. Some few articles are partly prepared, but are not sufficient to warrant any prospect of this part of the work being completed. It is the less needed since the publication of the late Professor Dozy's valuable Supplément.
Fifty years have passed since Mr. Lane undertook to write this Lexicon, and thirty since the first Part appeared. If there has been considerable delay in the production of the recent Parts, I must plead that the collation, revision, and verification of about two thousand columns of this work represent no little labour; and this duty has had to be done in the midst of other and no less pressing ocoupations.
S. LANE-POOLE.
1st January, 1893.
