EXPRESSIVE WORDS.
I knew very well a French Chevalier, who on coming to England, applied himself with amazing ardour to the study of our language, and his remarks upon it, if not always very acute were at least entertaining. One day, reading aloud an English work, he stopped at the word SPLASH; expressed himself highly delighted with it, as a term, which minutely described the thing meant; then repeating it many times with marked pleasure, and a strong sibillation, he added, "No! no! dere is noting at all, noting in my language dat de same would be like splash!" Perhaps the following sentence from the satire of a notorious wit in Elizabeth's reign, is a fair specimen of those expressive words which paint, the object of which they speak:—"To which place, Gabriel came, ruffling it out, hufty-tufty, in his new suit of velvet." The man was vain; the writer has made him a peacock. M.L.B.
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Footnote 1:[(return)]
Johnson's Life of Thomson.
Footnote 2:[(return)]
Show-houses is a very appropriate term for such of the mansions of our nobility and gentry as are open to public inspection. Hagley is extremely rich in treasures of art. A mere catalogue of them would occupy the whole of our sheet; but we must notice two curiously carved mahogany tables, which cost £200.; four exquisitely carved busts of Shakspeare, Milton, Spenser, and Dryden, by Scheimaker, and bequeathed to George, Lord Lyttleton, by Pope; the portrait of Pope and his dog, Bounce; a fine Madonna, by Rubens; several pictures by Vandyke, Sir Peter Lely, Le Brun, &c. &c. the Gobelin tapestry of the drawing room; the ceiling painted by Cipriani; and the family pictures, among which is Judge Lyttleton, copied from the painted glass in the Middle Temple Hall.
Footnote 3:[(return)]
Thomson's affectionate letter to his sister, (quoted by Johnson, who received it from Boswell,) is dated "Hagley, in Worcestershire, October the 4th, 1747."
Footnote 4:[(return)]
Anteuil, near Paris.
Footnote 5:[(return)]
Horace speaks thus to his steward in the country. Epistle xiv. book 1.
Footnote 6:[(return)]
Lewis XIV.
Footnote 7:[(return)]
See Ode sur la prise de Namur.
Footnote 8:[(return)]
This metaphor has been considered too bold, and perhaps justly, but Despreaux did not think it so. He observed to M. Dagnesseau that if this line were not good, he might burn the whole production.
Footnote 9:[(return)]
Afterwards advanced to the rank of post captain, in 1801.