the vulgar think and deem. The pressmen have already outrun the auctioneer mentioned at page 229 of this work; having now waxed bolder, they will not begin or even commence; they inaugurate and initiate, and they will soon incept. The state of France after 1871 has lately given them two glorious new words, rejuvenescence and recuperation. In a letter on prison discipline, printed in the Times of September 5, 1872, we find the wondrous word penology; the writer compounds Latin with Greek, and knows not how to spell the Latin he has compounded. What would become of our unhappy tongue, had we not the Bible and Prayer Book to keep us fairly steady in the good old paths? Our forefathers thought our mansion weather-tight, but these lovers of the new-fangled are ever panting to exchange stone and brick for stucco.[1] When the Irish Protestants were revising their Prayer Book, not many months ago, one luckless wight, a lover of what they call ‘ornate phraseology,’ was not ashamed to propose an alteration of our grand old Teutonic name for the Third Person of the Trinity. It is needless to say what a reception this piece of unwisdom met with from a scholar like Archbishop Trench. No vulgar hands should be laid on the Ark.
We all owe much to the Correspondents of the daily journals. Many of them write sound English; but the penny-a-liner may now and then be found in their ranks. His Babylonish speech bewrayeth him; he mawkishly enough calls an Emperor ‘a certain exalted Personage;’ a favourite at Court becomes in the scribbler's mouth ‘a persona grata.’ After all, it is rather hard to grudge
- ↑ O that they would learn ‘deductum ducere carmen!’
