to his query, p. 215. of your last Number, to the article "Americanism"
in the _Penny Cyclopædia_, the author of which observes:--

"_Sparse_ is, for any thing we know, a new word, and well applied;
the Americans say a _sparse_ instead of a scattered population; and
we think the term has a more precise meaning than scattered, and is
the proper correlative of _dense_."

In the _Imperial Dictionary_ (avowedly based upon Webster's American
work, which I cannot at this moment refer to in its original form), the
word in question is given both as an adjective and as a verb, and the
derivatives "sparsed," "sparsedly," "sparsely," and "sparseness," are
also admitted. The reference given for the origin of "sparse" is to the
Latin "_sparsus_, scattered, from _spargo_;" and the definitions are, 1.
"Thinly scattered, set or planted here and there; as, a _sparse_
population:" and, 2., as a botanical term, "not opposite, not alternate,
nor in any regular order; applied to branches, leaves, peduncles, &c."

J.T. STANESBY.


_Cosmopolis--Complutensian Polyglot_.--Though in considerable haste, I
must send replies to the fourth and eighth queries of my friend Mr.
Jebb, No. 14. p. 213.

_Cosmopolis_ was certainly Amsterdam. That the _Interpretationes
paradoxæ quatuor Evangeliorum_, by Christophorus Christophori Sandius,
were there printed, appears from this writer's _Bibliotheca
Anti-Trinitarionum_, p. 169., Freistad, 1684. I may add that "Coloniæ"
signifies "Amstelædami" in the title-page of Sandius's _Nucleus Historiæ