[24] Shakspeare makes “Ancient Pistol” use a new-coined Italian word, when he speaks of being “better accommodated;” to the great delight of Justice Shallow, who exclaims, “It comes from accommodo—a good phrase!” And Ben Jonson, in his “Tale of a Tub,” ridicules Inigo Jones’s love of two words he often used:—
| ————If it conduce To the design, whate’er is feasible, I can express. |
[25] The term pluck, once only known to the prize-ring, has now got into use in general conversation, and also into literature, as a term indicative of ready courage.
[26] Such terms as “patent to the public”—“normal condition”—“crass behaviour,” are the inventions of the last few years.
[27] Shakspeare has a powerfully-composed line in the speech of the Duke of Burgundy, (Henry V. Act v. Sc. 2), when, describing the fields overgrown with weeds, he exclaims—
| ——The coulter rusts, That should deracinate such savagery. |
[28] The “Quarterly Review” recently marked the word liberalise in italics as a strange word, undoubtedly not aware of its origin. It has been lately used by Mr. Dugald Stewart, “to liberalise the views.”—Dissert. 2nd part, p. 138.
THE PHILOSOPHY OF PROVERBS.
In antique furniture we sometimes discover a convenience which long disuse had made us unacquainted with, and are surprised by the aptness which we did not suspect was concealed in its solid forms. We have found the labour of the workmen to have been as admirable as the material itself, which is still resisting the mouldering touch of time among those modern inventions, elegant and unsubstantial, which, often put together with unseasoned wood, are apt to warp and fly into pieces when brought into use. We have found how strength consists in the selection of materials, and that, whenever the substitute is not better than the original, we are losing something in that test of experience, which all things derive from duration.