"But," he adds, "the twenty-five feet rise is only the last stage of a long antecedent process of elevation;" for, as he goes on to tell us, " Mr. Smith of Jordenhill informs [him] that a rude ornament, made of cannel coal," has been found on the coast fifty feet above the water, among some gravel containing marine shells, which prove that this land was once covered by the sea.

On the strength solely of this information from Mr. Smith, he proceeds to establish the age of this marine sand hill, for the purpose of deducing from it the age of this ornament, which he assumes to be an ancient relic. He says:

"If we suppose the upward movement to have been uniform in central Scotland before and after the Roman age, and assume that as twenty-five feet indicate seventeen centuries, so fifty feet imply a lapse of twice that number, or 3400 years, we should then carry back the date of the ornament in question to fifteen centuries before our era, or to the days of Pharaoh and the period usually assigned to the exodus of the Israelites from Egypt."—p. 55.

We cite the above as a fair specimen of the kind of evidence and style of argument adopted throughout this book to prove the antiquity of man. The only fact in this case, is, that a piece of cannel coal, a mineral of not very ancient discovery,* fashioned into a ring or some other rude ornament, such as boys, in a cannel coal district, delight to whittle out of that material, was found on the surface of a marine sand hill 50 feet high. What legitimate connection is there between the date of this work of art, and the supposed age of the hill on which it was dropped? It presents in itself no marks of antiquity except its rudeness, and had it been whittled out and lost by some truant school-boy, which is the most reasonable supposition, a very few seasons would have sufficed to cover it with the loose gravel and sand in which it was found. Yet the date of this cannel coal ornament is carried back by suppositions and assumptions to the days of Pharaoh, and offered as an argument to prove the immense antiquity of man! The inference suggested very palpably, though not stated, is, that the Scots had begun to mine coal, and had made some progress in the æsthetic arts at "the period usually assigned to the exodus of the Israelites from Egypt."

* A bituminous substance called ampelion, from its use by the Greeks and Romans to anoint vines, is supposed by some to have been a species of cannel coal. VOL. XVII.

45*

We are justified in concluding, from this case, that if some other Mr. Smith of Norway had informed our Author that a similar ornament had been found on the surface of the first mentioned marine sand hill of 600 feet high, he would have considered this information proof of the existence of a preAdamite 24,000 years ago, who had already advanced beyond the brutal state of the stone age, and also as furnishing evidence that the statements of Revelation in regard to the time of creation and original state of man are false.

Surely Napoleon uttered a profound truth when he said, "There are some men capable of believing every thing but the Bible."

Our limits will not permit us at present to continue the examination of this book; the part which we have already examined, is, we think, the strongest, and we have seen on what a slender foundation of facts the Author relies to support his assumptions in regard to the antiquity of man and his primeval state of brutal savagism. So far as we have advanced in it, we find nothing to excite, in the most timid mind, a reasonable doubt of the usual acceptation of the chronology of the Bible taken in its narrowest sense, although we consider such an acceptance of it open to reasonable doubt.

The book seems to be written with candor and frankness, for, in the prolixity of its details, it does not omit facts and opinions very damaging to the views entertained, and which would almost furnish, to an observant reader, the means requisite for their refutation. Yet the author writes under such an evident bias, and avails himself so readily of the most trivial facts to make out a case, that he is obnoxious to the severest criticism consistent with strict justice, and ought not to complain of a rigid and jealous scrutiny of his opinions.

Time and opportunity serving, we propose, on a future occasion, to pursue the analysis of this book to the end; then to turn the tables on these scientific skeptics, and show that the Bible, considered from a philosophical stand-point, is far more consonant with human reason than these "oppositions of science falsely so called," and vastly more entitled to belief than the fanciful hypotheses which have been offered as substitutes. "And this will we do, if God permit."

1

ART. II.-GENESIS OF SLANG AND STREET-SWEARING.

(1.) Dictionary of Slang. JOHN CAMDEN HOLTEN. London:

1863.

(2) Life and Writings of Major Jack Downing of Downingsvill. Boston: 1834.

(3.) Clockmaker; or the Sayings and Doings of Samuel Slick, of Slickville. London: 1840.

CANT words, slang and profane swearing may be set down as three of those 'inventions' which the Scripture says we have 'found out,' in place of our original 'uprightness.' They are devices of close kindred; resulting either from defects of understanding or of speech. To improve an argument, we invent a term or twist a word; and to enforce it, we add an oath. The practices have, therefore, a common origin; and where not owing to a defective vocabulary, must be held as evidences of an imperfect or depraved intellect. Of these tricks, that of profane swearing is but too common among us; and although the habit may have been somewhat curtailed in our day and within our recollection, still there is room for question, whether it really has suffered any other change than that of patronage; and, whereas in former times it had been chiefly confined to men full-grown and in active life, it is now to be found more frequently among the idlers and the young;—an unsavory indication that the religious discipline and education of our fathers was better than our own. That such is the case, may, we think, be inferred from a comparison of the habits of our ancestors, as recorded and transmitted to us, with what we are accustomed to see and hear every day now. In former times, it required a beard and a sword, to excuse, or give occasion for an oath; but in our day, they greet us from lads in their sports, as well as in their quarrels, and a meer

Eccl. vii. 29.

schaum and a curse hang, not unfrequently, on lips which have scarce done with school recitations. This, too, when such impieties are no longer tolerated in drawing-rooms, or in good society, and have not the influence of example in high places, to disguise their absurd and unnecessary wickedness.

We hold all kinds of slang, and street or common swearing, including even the somewhat less exceptionable technicals of fashionable life, to be trite wickednesses of the same family, only the more demoralizing because they are purposeless; and therefore, in our opinion, every fashion either of writing or speaking, which tends to foster or excuse such improprieties, deserves distinct reprehension and discouragement. Now, of the many different sorts of books which come among us in modern times, there is one peculiar to our own age, which we believe to have a bad tendency in this respect, and the more so, because its influence is covert, and not directly appreciable. We allude to books written purposely in an imperfect, quaint, or vulgar idiom; whose excellence as compositions must lie wholly in the accuracy of the imitation, and can be appreciable only by such as are familiar with the originals. In short, books which are made up of written mimicry, and have no purpose of instruction, except to make common thoughts ludicrous, by clothing them in imperfect or obsolete forms of speech. We have placed the title of certain works of this class at the head of our Article, not with any purpose of criticizing their merits, much less to accuse their authors of any purposed design against either good morals or good manners, but simply as samples of a kind of literature, the main object of which would seem to be, to hold up imperfect or peculiar dialects of our language to public ridicule, and to give vogue and currency to terms in themselves unusual, antiquated, idiomatic, or vulgar. We refer to them merely in the light of unintentional fabricators or purveyors of cant and slang, and in this wise, aimless auxiliaries to an evil practice.

In saying this, we would by no means be understood as objecting to the use either of idiom or dialect, when these become necessary adjuncts to any narrative. The Doric forms of Greek were often used with this intent, both in Comedy and

in Pastoral, even in the ripest age of that great people. In the last century, Burns gave expression and pathos to his lyrics, by singing

"The loves; the ways of simple Scottish swains,"

in the rustic language and idiom of his country; and this, too, at a time when his countrymen, Hume, Robertson and Stewart, were earning laurels of a different kind in the higher fields of pure English literature. The Dramatists have all used this characteristic in their portraitures, although it must be noticed that the greatest masters have done so with the most sparing hand. In Shakespeare we have very little of it. The Welsh of Fluellen; the Scotch of Captain Jamie; and the French of Doctor Caius, are the only specimens of dialect; and Corporal Nym and his fellows, the only characters in which slang is made a principal feature. In our own day, Scott, Dickens, and Thackeray, have all used dialect in their descriptions; all of them, too, with great effect. Yet we have often questioned, whether Scott's most delicate touches of this kind could have ever been fairly understood by his readers in the sister kingdom; and the time seems fast approaching, when they will require both time and study to be appreciated by his own countrymen. Now, whatever may be its effect upon our cotemporaries, it is evident that the use of a peculiar or obsolete dialect, must always be an imperfection with those readers who are to come after us. For we have no idea that a Glossary can

ever be a convenience. So far, therefore, as traits of this sort may be necessary in elucidating character or aiding description,-though even then they are a great bar to any writer's chances at immortality, we do not deem them entirely inadmissible. They are only so, when, instead of a mean, they become the sole end and purpose of any literary effort, and thus lead to the accumulation of a senseless and often-times wicked jargon. Many of us will remember how frequent the oath, by the eternal,' came into common conversation, shortly after the publication of Major Jack Downing's book: and this is only one example of the influence which we are now deprecating.

Exclamations are of course necessary, in all kinds of intercourse with our fellows. They are the parts of speech which