Fitzedward Hall

A scholar and philologist, American-born and -educated Hall took up the professorship of Sanskrit at King's College London in 1862. After retiring from public life as a result of various controversies, which included his expulsion from the Philological Society, he was persuaded to assist with the OED by Walter Skeat. Although they never met, Hall being something of a recluse, he became one of Murray's closest friends and contributors, devoting at least 4 hours of each day to reading and annotating OED proofs. The quotation slip written by Hall appears in the entry for of, prep., sense 50. The quotation reads: ‘1804 Mitford Inq. Princ. Harmony Lang. (ed. 2) 405 The great attending injury has been to the analogy of the language.’ Hall added a note at the bottom of the slip: ‘(You must fill up the date. And is the title full enough? I have not the book at hand.)’.