St. Paul daily globe. [volume] (Saint Paul, Minn.) 1884-1896, 1884-04-09

.AinS SCoioSlcdI survey. Leu ~ nOuo
seem as if common sense of justice called
for the universal proclamation, and recognis
tlon OF Percival's work in the dictionary
which grew under his hand from a mere
compilation from other sources fit for scarce
~ more than school exposition,
to be the paramount lexicon OF
the world. The discovery OF
crafty claimant got pretty well intrenched
ahead OF him. 1t is nearly the same case
with James Gates Percival, for his ''infinite
riches" OF mind were absorbed in the big
dictionary bearing the name of Noah Web
ster, whose representatives considered three
hundred dollars year until PercivaPs job
was done remarkably generous pay as quit
claim.
In literary works of much less weight
sense OF equity has recognized the idea OF
partnership where two persons have been
mutually at work upon the same effort, and
the idea is as old, if not older, than Beau
mont and Fletcher, while coming down to
the present we have the Erckman-C hatrian
firm of noyelsts, Gilbert and Sullivan, OF
Spiers and Surenne in combined French
and English dictionary.
In the spirit of rendering to every one
things that are his due, it would be regarded
as an suspicious anae7lde to the memory Of
Percival if the title of our national dictionary
could be agitated into reading hereafter,
'Percival and Webster's Unabridged, ''etc., or
oice 0ersa. But it probably never will. Time
sometimes rights such wrongs, but oftener
fortifies them, and, as fame was denied to
Percival from his first poetical volume, OBJ
security, poverty, neglect and loneliness fol-
lowed him to the close of his life in a mining
shanty in Wisconsin.
The critics of Boston treated his poems as
cavaierly as the sagacious arbiters in such
matters had erstwhile dashed the gentle and
sensitive Keats to his doom. Percival, too,
was almost bounded into throwing off the
burden of life, so condemned and belittled
had it been made to him. His
early disappointment which led him to the
verge OF suicide, threw its grim shadow over
all his career. He was naturally reserved,
retiring and gentle He asked but little of the
world, and in sad sooth tits evident he
got it. He was superior to his time, and his
time scarcely discovered it until the silent
forces of his rare scholarship stirred other
students. alive to its magnitude, to make
known the buried genius of James Gates
Percival.
We are people of eccentric and incense
quent energies. For instance, we have a
speculative and restless variety of intellect
constantly bent on displacing the fame Of
Shakespeare; and here is an instance within
our ken of fame wrongfully withheld, and
scarce voice or pen comes to the rescue,
except at the rarest intervals, and then only
in faint and even deprecating protest. Per-
haps the plea is made that Percival sold his
services absolutely, but if he did twas at an
absurdly low figure for the value he gave,
and the persons offering the stipend were
governed by their knowledge of his utter
ignorance in money matters, and
his singular unworldliness. Many years of
his life were clouded by debts which finally
eliminated in the embarrassment of having
his friends contribute $4,000 to save his
books from seizure. A man of his simple
habits, for Percival was as primitive in his
mode of living as Thoreau, need not have been
put to financial straits except through his un-
sophisticated pecuniary methods, which were
turned to profitable account by the keen
traffickers in brains. The question of money
is OF no consequence now-only as 1t points
moral, but the question of Percival's
fame is the concern Of his countrymen, who
should see that it is rightly placed.
1t is worthy of as much attention as bring
ing home the bones of John Howard Payne,
and it is fully as desirable protective meas
ure to the fame of the dead, and the pros
pective fame of many among the living as
M. Henri Watterson's newspaper copy
right