than usual, I am sorely tempted to throw up the appointment, and to return into the private station from which I emerged to become sub-postmaster of Avonhill.

DEGENERATE WORDS.

THE history of a word is often singularly like that of a human being. Some words rise from a very lowly origin in the slums of slang to respectability and general use and acceptance; others, entering the language under much more favourable conditions, fall by mischance or neglect into disuse, and drag out a maimed existence in provincial or dialectal forms.

of land, and is suggestive of 'a gob' of mud on the end of a shingle."

Another degenerate word is "clean," in the sense of entirely," or "altogether." The word with this meaning was constantly employed by the best writers until a very recent date, but its use now in serious writing would be considered colloquial, if not vulgar. To be "shut of" a person or thing, meaning to be rid of him or it, is a familiar provincialism in the Northern Counties of England, and is also to be frequently heard among the lower order of Londoners. But the phrase was formerly in respectable literary use. It is used by Massinger in the Unnatural Combat, 1639, Act iii., scene 1:

We are shut of him,

He will be seen no more here.

Bunyan, who was naturally fond of racy and proverbial expressions, uses it in the Holy War." Many years earlier, Thomas Nashe employs the phrase in his satirical pamphlet, "Have with you to Saffron Walden," where, in the "Address to the Reader," referring to his unfortunate antagonist, the pedantic Gabriel Harvey, he writes: "I have him haunt me up and downe to be my prentise to learne to endite, and doo what I can, I shall not be shut of him."

To "cotton," meaning to agree with, to take to, is now a common colloquial expression. As the poet says in the "Ingoldsby Legends: "

For when once Madame Fortune deals out her hard
raps,
It's amazing to think

In worse case even than the latter are those words which, having been for many years, perhaps for centuries, in ordinary use by the best writers, gradually sink into disrepute, and being heard only in colloquial" or vulgar language, find a last resting-place in the pages of a slang dictionary. Such words in their decline often undergo a slight change of meaning. They are no longer used with accuracy and precision, but become contaminated by the company they keep, and acquire new significations, coarser and broader than of old. A good example is the word "gob." As a noun this is now vulgarly applied to the mouth, and as a verb it means to swallow. "Shut your gob!" is a polite invitation to silence among certain classes of society. Says Tom Cringle in the first chapter of Michael Scott's famous sea story: "I thrust half a doubled-up muffin into my gob." But the word itself is a very ancient and respectable one. "Gob" formerly meant, in a general sense, a small portion, mass, or collection of anything. In its longer form of "gobbet" it is found not unfrequently in Piers Plowman, Chaucer, and Wiclif. It was often used literally or metaphorically to describe a mouthful or a piece of anything just large enough or fit to be put into the mouth at once. In Ludowick Barry's comedy of Ram-Alley, published in 1611, one of the characters says that "Throate the lawyer swallowed at one gob" certain land "for less than half the worth." A hundred and sixty years later, Foote, in his farce The Cozeners, describes how "Doctor Dewlap twisted down such gobs of fat." The old general meaning seems to have survived in America. In Mark Twain's "Innocents Abroad," Gibraltar is described as "pushed out into the sea on the end of a flat, narrow strip

How one cottons to drink!

This use of the word, however, was common several centuries ago. It is found occasionally in the Elizabethan writers, but perhaps the earliest known example is the following, from Thomas Drant's translation of Horace, published in 1567:

So feyneth he, things true and false
So alwayes mingleth he,

That first with midst, and middst with laste,
Maye cotten and agree.

The word is entered in Bartlett's 'Dictionary of Americanisms," but as this quotation shows," to cotton," like so many other so-called Americanisms, is simply survival, in vulgar use on both sides of the Atlantic, of a respectable old English word. It may be noted by the way, as regards its etymology, that it has no connection with the plant cotton, but is derived from a Welsh verb, meaning to agree, to consent.

A notable instance of descent from literary to vulgar use is to be found in the history of one of the meanings of the verb to "cut." The phrases to "cut over," and to "cut away," are found in the writers of the latter part of the sixteenth century, bearing precisely the same meaning as attaches to the corresponding modern slang expressions. For instance, Lambarde the antiquary, in his "Perambulation of Kent," published in 1570, says: "Let me cut over to Watling Streete." Nashe, in one of his Marprelate tracts, the "Countercuffe to Martin Junior," 1589, writes: "He came latelie over-sea into Kent, from thence he cut over into Essex at Gravesende." With the present day use of these phrases is generally associated the idea of more or less hurried, or enforced departure. In "Great Expectations," Orlick remarks: "A good night for cutting off in. We'd be puzzled how to bring down a jail-bird on the wing to-night."

The expression to knock off," meaning to desist from, to give up, is a familiar colloquialism, with a peculiarly modern appearance; but in reality it can show good authority for its existence in its use by one of the best and most vigorous of English prose writers. In the tenth chapter of the "History of the Worthies of England," 1662, Fuller writes:

"In noting of their nativities, I have wholly observed the instructions of Pitseus, where I knock off with his death, my light ending with his life on that subject."

Another street word of respectable descent, is "fadge," to suit, or fit. Its use is now pretty well confined to costermongers and similar street folk; but it is to be found in Shakespeare, and in other Elizabethan and Jacobean writers. "How will this fadge?" asks Viola in Twelfth Night. "Clothes I must get; this fashion will not fadge with me," says a character in Beaumont and Fletcher's Wit without Money.

A word that might have served a very useful purpose in our language is "proser." We have no equivalent in English for the French "prosateur," a word that Menage invented in imitation of the Italian "prosatore," a writer in prose. "Proser" was coined to meet the want, and is to be found in this sense in Drayton. But the word has degenerated, and is now so universally used and accepted as a mere synonym for a bore, or a dull talker or writer, that it would be a hopeless task to try to employ it in any higher or broader sense, and, for the present at least, we must be content with the rather ugly compound "prose-writer."

The phrase to "make bones of," that is, to find difficulty in anything, is now restricted to colloquial use; but it was formerly current literary coin, and is frequently to be met with in our older literature. Its earlier form was, "to find bones in," which clearly shows the phrase to have originated in a reference to bones in soup, or similar food, regarded as A frequently-heard vulgarism is "along obstacles to swallowing. In this form it of," in the sense of "on account of." But, is found as early as the middle of the vulgar as its use is now considered to be, fifteenth century, in the Paston Letters. it is a genuine, good old English phrase, It does not occur in its present shape "to that was in frequent literary use for make bones" until a century later, but centuries before, falling from its high from this period on to the end of the estate, it became a familiar locution in the seventeenth century it was in constant use. Vocabulary of the street. It is found so Two early instances raay suffice. Nashe, far back as the ninth century in King in his before-mentioned "Have with you Alfred's translation of Orosius's "History," to Saffron Walden," speaking of Harvey, and is in fact common in most of the early says: "He would make no bones to take writers. It occurs in Chaucer and in the wall of Sir Philip Sidney." In Robert Caxton. William Stafford, in his "Ex-Greene's "Francesco's Fortune," 1590, a amination of Complaints," published in timid lover is thus encouraged: "Tricke 1581, speaking of the general poverty, says: thy selfe up in thy best reparrell, and Whereof it is longe I cannot well tell." In make no bones at it, but on a wooing." the first part of King Henry the Sixth, Act "Gills," a slang term for the lower part of the face, was used with much the same meaning by Ben Jonson, and by Lord Bacon. To "swop," that is to exchange or barter, is now an undeniably vulgar word, but it appears in the classic pages of the "Spectator," and is also to be found much earlier in Robert Greene's volumi

iv., scene
We mourn, France smiles; we lose, they daily get;

3, the Duke of York exclaims:

All long of this vile traitor Somerset.

Cymbeline, when telling his daughter
Imogen of her mother's death, says:

And long of her it was
That we meet here so strangely.

nous writings. "Tall," in the American strange methods of treatment, which were sense of vain or braggart, is only a modi- oftentimes startling in their novelty and fication of the former generally accepted boldness. But it was not the diseased meaning of brave or bold. Dekker, in The man who absorbed his attention and excited Shoemaker's Holiday, 1600, Act i., says: his sympathy; it was the disease itself in "Hee's a brother of our trade, a good which all his interest centred, and it was workman, and a tall souldier." less to save life or banish pain that he schemed and operated, than to bring back into proper working order the deranged mechanism of the sufferer's system.

But the list might be extended almost indefinitely, for the words and phrases given above are but examples of a very large class. The fate of many words, as of some books, seems to have been controlled by

That shrewd and knavish sprite Call'd Robin Goodfellow, or some other irresponsible elf. Good and useful words die from neglect and disuse, while inferior coinages enjoy a vigorous existence. Some words, originally slang and of doubtful origin, receive promotion and become integral parts of our recognised vocabulary; but others, such as those which form the subject of this paper, although still current, are yet but debased images of their former selves.

THE UNPARALLELED EXPERIENCE
OF SIMEON PRECIOUS.

CHAPTER I.

DOCTOR PRECIOUS-Simeon Precious, M.D. was Demonstrator of Anatomy in the University of He was a tall, lank man of fifty-five years of age, clean shaven, and of cadaverous complexion; while the falling away of his dark hair from his brow and temples had had the effect of still further accentuating the general asceticism of his appearance. Of a somewhat feeble physique from his childhood, much study and continual mental exercise had served to increase the initial disproportion between the energy of his mind and the frailty of his body, and to render the latter, as time went on, more and more incompetent to restrain the impulses and vagaries of the former, and less capable of remaining stolid and unmoved when exposed to its surging eddies and wild commotions.

He had no practice in the ordinary sense of the word, but devoted the whole of his time to lecturing, and tuition, and private research; though, when the local hospital happened to contain a patient suffering from some mysterious and perplexing disease, he was frequently to be seen there, making close and prolonged examinations, and suggesting new and

That life was saved and pain banished as a consequence of his delicate and skilful manipulations was a matter of comparative indifference to Doctor Precious; and when the patient's body was once more in a normal condition, all his interest in him ceased. He pondered much over problems which are generally considered to be so incapable of solution as to make the serious contemplation of them nothing more than waste of time. But the search for the Philosopher's Stone and the Elixir of Life

futile as it has always proved-has been the means of discovering many valuable and interesting facts in chemical science, and perhaps Doctor Precious found a similarly sufficient reward result from his prolonged courses of experiments and investigations.

He was chary of making confidences, and spoke but little of the strange and mysterious problems which it was known were engaging his earnest attention. It was said that, amongst other seemingly wild dreams, he confidently cherished the hope of being able to add a third or more to the actual duration of a man's life, and, consequently, to his opportunities for study and research, by discovering a means of making sleep unnecessary. He argued, so those who were most intimate with him said, that a man grew tired and sleepy through some change in the condition of his system, or of some part of it, the blood most probably; and that Nature, by some unknown process, transformed, during the six or eight hours of nightly sleep, the condition which produced a feeling of drowsiness and weariness into the condition which made a man feel wakeful and fresh. Other effects which Nature but very slowly brought to pass, science had discovered ways of bringing about in a very short time; and Doctor Precious declared that he could not consider he was entertaining an altogether extravagant or idle hope in looking for ward to a day when science, by injecting some strongly oxygenated liquid into the blood, or by some other means, should find out a way of effecting this as yet

mysterious and occult transformation of the condition of the human system in as many minutes, or fewer, as unassisted Nature took hours.

For years past, too, he had devoted much time and untiring labour to a series of experiments and observations by means of which he hoped to cast some light upon the mysterious connection between mind and body. How could two things (if things" were, indeed, a right word to use) so different in nature affect each other? This was the question to which he was striving to find an answer. He had studied deeply the theories of Leibnitz and Spinoza, but he could not yet see his way clearly to accept them. At the same time, however, he had no theory of his own which would give a satisfactory answer to the question which was constantly tormenting him, and driving him on to fresh experiments and investigations. To say, as Leibnitz says, that when a man moves his finger coincidently with the desire to move it, it is a delusion to suppose that there is any connection between the desire and the act, seemed to him to be contrary to all experience; and yet how could mind, intangible, invisible, imponderous mind, act upon solid, ponderous matter? So year after year he strained and strove after the mysterious secret which ever eluded his grasp.

that a healthy, living man, who afforded him opportunities neither for dissection nor delicate operation, was devoid of all interest and attraction for him. To the young men who attended his lectures and demonstrations, he was more a speaking automaton than a man of like nature with themselves. There was no sympathy, no feeling of a common humanity between them; and the Demonstrator's pupils would as soon have thought of looking upon one of the antique statues in the University Museum in the light of a possible friend, as upon himself.

a

Of Simeon Precious, indeed, it could be truly said that, though he was in the world, he was not of it. Its pleasures, and gaieties, and beauties were utterly without charm or interest to him; and a "yellow primrose by the water's brim” was not even a yellow primrose to him, nor even perennial acaulescent herb;" it was simply nothing at all. Anything that was simple, and natural, and wholesome, might just as well have not existed, for all he cared about it, except insomuch as it provided him with food, and consequently supported his vitality, and so enabled him to continue the researches and investigations for which alone he seemed to live.

Notwithstanding his apparently frail physique, he had never been compelled by ill-health or bodily weakness to desist from his work or studies even for a single day. There was something about his whole appearance, indeed, which seemed to suggest that his body was scarcely like the bodies of other men; but that it was a mere cloak or covering for his mind, helplessly swayed and tossed about by the impulses and vagaries of the wild spirit it veiled, rather than a solid working machine. His acquaintances shook their heads gravely now and then as they glanced at him, and prophesied some terrible break down in the near future.

When not engaged in lecturing or other official work, the Demonstrator of Anatomy lived a hermit-like life in a couple of uncomfortable rooms in one of the quietest streets of the town. He seldom or never dined in the hall of his college, and he was not much troubled with invitations to dine elsewhere. He himself had never been known to ask any one to share a meal with him in his own rooms; and if such an invitation had ever been given, some excuse would probably have been invented for declining it, unless curiosity had mastered the not unnatural unwillingness to make a table-companion of a man who seemed to look upon his fellow- THE Demonstrator of Anatomy had been creatures merely as potential "niduses" working hard and late for several days for the incubation and development of past, hard and late even for him. He monstrous growths, or as subjects for was thrilled with a feverish hope that his courses of mystic experiments. experiments and investigations had at There were few, if any, who could be last disclosed to him the elements of the called his friends, for he gave but slight solution of the mysterious problem which encouragement to those whom interest in had so long been baffling him, the action the same studies brought into association of mind upon matter, if only he could with him to cultivate a closer intimacy. understand their full bearing upon each Without being morose or misanthropic, other, and combine them in the right way. his manner seemed distinctly to proclaim But everything was still very misty and

CHAPTER II.