sense of the commonest understanding, that the dupe is caught, as larks are taken with a mirror, dazzled by excess of light; and he voluntarily rushes upon the most desperate jump in logic, from the evidence of the first link in the chain of reasoning, to the trustworthiness of the last.

Here, then, we found our distinguo, and upon the very admissions we have yielded, prove our case. If all words may be subservient to deceit, and if truth itself be necessary to deception, it follows that some words should be much more deceitful than others. Some indeed there are which lend themselves so readily and so perfectly to the desired end, that they seem as if invented for the express purpose; and without them, the greater and more solemn plausibilities of life could with difficulty be permanently continued. Not to lose ourselves in a maze of particulars, we will only instance those general terms which are so general as to possess no meaning whatever, and which may for that reason be brought to pass for any or for every meaning: such are matter and space, abstract rights, John Hunter's stimulus of necessity, the primitive and indefeasible equality of man, the “moi” and the "absolu" of the new French philosophy, &c. &c. These terms and their fellows constitute, par excellence, the appropriate language of humbug, as we understand it, and in contradiction to the other words of the dictionary. But so numerous are these anguillæ equivocationis (not to speak of others less obscure), so subtle and so difficult to pin down to any fixed and determined meaning, that a vocabulary of them, however imperfect, would fill a large volume, although the mysteries belonging to each word should only be slightly glanced at. The common dictionaries, then, may contain the language of humbug inclusivè, but the terms, like gold buried fathoms deep in the unworked mine, are of no use to mankind. The words are there, it is true, but their relations to deceit are unexplored. Ordinary lexicographers take language as they find it; and when they have quoted an authority for some special use of a word, they think they have given their word a character; whereas they have only favoured it with a passport, too often obtained upon the most fraudulent pretences. No one of them, as far as we know, has attempted to illustrate the abuses to which his terms are liable, or taken the slightest pains, by careful analysis, to protect the student from imposition. On the contrary, we need but open any of their works (Johnson's Dictionary for instance, the literary bible of a genuine John Bull), and we shall find, be the page which it may, use and abuse so jumbled together, as to force a belief that the confusion is not altogether without a collusive design to help forward the craft.

prosecu

But the most formidable opposition we have to expect in the tion of our proposal, is from those who, considering humbug to be essential to their own interests, are in a state of feverish alarm at the approaching advent, as they imagine, of a reign of unmystified common sense, which they regard as the comble of anarchy and confusion. In their extreme alarm for the peace and order of society, they are fearful, lest, by the printing of a dictionary of humbug, the art might be endangered, and Othello's occupation gone. What!-they will say -remove the impenetrability of humbug! denounce the fallacy by which we live! lay bare the mystery which preserves the frame of soFeb.-VOL. LXVII. NO. CCLXVI.

city together! What are you dreaming of!! When all can see their way to the essence of things, who will think it worth his while to play the juggler with words?

Such fears are altogether unfounded; and to entertain them is to entertain very inadequate notions of human nature. It is by no means sufficient that the mechanism of an imposition should be exposed, in order to ensure its downfal. At every turn, many exceedingly wellconditioned humbugs are to be encountered, stalking the streets in full daylight alive, and alive like to be, in spite of the best efforts to knock out their brains by an intelligible definition. The quinta pars hominum, the small phalanx of the world's picked men alone are in a condition to profit by the lights our dictionary would concentrate. The masses have little leisure for study, and less inclination to avail themselves of that little they possess; and what is more, they do not like being put out of their way by outlandish truths, with which (like the Scotch lady in the case of cleanliness and order)" they canna be fashed." For the most part, they are positively in love with humbug, and fully realize-(pardon the novelty of the quotation)-Hudibras's notion, that

The pleasure is as great

In being cheated, as to cheat.

Accordingly, they ever prefer the false Sinon Pure to the true; and are ready to resent the attempt to set them right, as an impudent assumption of intellectual superiority, unfounded as it is troublesome. Thrones, altars, social order, and all that is dearest to man" (the cant words of the alarmist to express his own share of "the siller"), in as far as they depend upon the successful propagation of falsehood (and remember, that they do so in any degree, is no saying of ours, but the innuendo of the class of talkers' whom we are answering), are not thus endangered by the truthtellers. Humbug is a many-headed monster, and uno avulso, non deficit alter. The man that is desirous to put down a humbug in which he has no interest, is only likely to succeed when he can substitute for it-not a truth-but another error that will be more generally pleasing. Philosophy has for two thousand years laboured with creditable zeal to eradicate humbug; but there it is to this day unimpaired, with its full complement of heads erect and hissing. In the mean time one impostor has succeeded to another, each in turn silencing his predecessor, and yielding in turn to a newer candidate; while every dog has had his day, and all have enjoyed their share of the profit. Errors may, perhaps, be extirpated, but error is immortal: and we will venture to assert that things as they are have more to fear from Socialists, Chartists, Mormonites,-ay, and from Puseyites, too, than from all that can be effected by the best lexicographer of humbug that shall ever arise.

That the simple and the plain are truly distasteful, and that the si vulgus vult decepi is no matter of mere conjecture, will appear from the fate of those who in any age have stumbled upon a "lanterne toute pleine de vérités," and have inconsiderately scattered them abroad, without regard to the mole eyes of their contemporaries. All such have been uniformly persecuted to the death, wherever and whenever they were not strong enough to take their own parts: and

when they have been too numerous to be thus put down with a strong hand, and when public opinion has winced at the gibbet and the stake on so large a scale, why then, to be sure, they have only been— tolerated.

Now, pray, my good friend, do not sit staring like a stuck pig at that last word. Do you really not know what it means? have you yet to learn that it is one of those clever vocables, contrived to cover, as Soulié says, the grossest iniquities with an appearance of justice. Are you indeed such a spooney as to confound toleration with liberality, and to plume yourself on not calling in the aid of the hangman against every man who nec sapit nec tecum sentit. If you are, indeed, possessed of that "Turkish opinion," you will stand in much risk of having some fine day to reckon without your host, in a way that will prove exceedingly disagreeable to your own fine feelings: and this all for want of our proposed dictionary.

Possessed of that invaluable authority, you would only have to turn to letter T, and to learn that toleration is now pretty well known as a sly euphemism representing mitigated persecution,-a humbug advanced to blind the unthinking to the odiousness of tampering by extrinsic hopes and fears with other men's consciences-a halfway house for spiritual pride and self-conceit to linger in, when reason and religion have put down open violence, and expelled them from their old stronghold, the compella intrare: you would thus see the danger of trusting to the word.

We are not sorry for having stumbled upon this digression; for it will serve to illustrate more fully the real bearings of our main proposition. It is sufficiently known that this word "toleration," has served perfectly well for more than a hundred years, to keep, in some endurable degree, the king's peace, without essentially disturbing the rights of certain parties to the lion's share in all the good things going, and without absolutely depriving them of the pleasure of insulting and trampling upon the rest of mankind: nay, better still, it has served to quiet the consciences of the weaker among the elect, who did not interpret the "love one another" of their divine master, as meaning "keep what you get, and get what you can." Now, it may be said that to disturb this blessed state of things is a great evil; and that the dictionary by teaching men to speak by the card, if not an offence punishable at common law, is at least a volume not to be encouraged by right-thinking people. True, good sirs, perfectly true, provided you could only keep things quiet as well as words. But the evil of it is, this, as we have shown, can't be done. Humbugs, like all other sublunary things, are perishable, and in them nature's copy's not etern. In spite of spite, men will discover that plunder is robbery, that blows pain, and that guns kill. Do what you will, they learn at last, that taking a man's horse from him because he is a papist, is not pleasant to the patient who is fond of a fox-chase; and that depriving him of his land for an opinion, is likely to end in starvation. In the long run then, the victims will wince and kick fearfully, when denied justice and stripped of their rights,-call the process by what delicate name you may. But here lies the true danger to society. It is in the nature of things that the progress of such discoveries can never be equal between the parties suffering such outrages and the parties profiting by them;

while it is this precise inequality which begets those very heart-burnings, insurrections, and revolutions, which it is the laudable desire of the "as you were" men to prevent. Now it cannot be denied that the inequality is vastly increased by an ignorant persistance in using the language which has ceased to disguise the nature of an abuse, without reference to its diminished efficacy. The perfection of a humbug is not merely to last out the date of its utility, but also to perish and disappear when that date is out. It is, however, one of the bad properties of humbugs, never to know when they are dead; but to continue running up and down, like Partridge, the almanac-maker, when they ought to be in their coffins, and not even so much as remembered in their epitaph.

In the age in which we live, more especially, this intense vitality of humbug is grievously pernicious; one party never thinking they can have enough of a good thing, and the other resenting the continuance of a deceit they have penetrated, and viewing it as insult added to injury. One great service then which society would derive by patronizing our dictionary, would be a more amicable adjustment of its great pending disputes. It would shorten the transition state, which is ever a ticklish crisis; and by teaching when a humbug had done its duty, it would either induce the parties concerned to submit cheerfully to inevitable consequences, or set them upon the timely invention of some novelty to break their fall, and give them leisure to accommodate themselves more conveniently to the change. The consequence, then, of a well-constructed dictionary, so far from striking a blow at the art, would be to quicken the succession, and by hurrying away worn out impositions, to preserve humbug in the general in a condition far better fitted for actual service.

Our readers cannot fail to have observed that from the variable nature of humbug, its dictionary would in the nature of things be more a record of the past, than a picture of the present; its decisions, unlike those of my lords the judges, would be rather comments than precedents. But we are bold to assert that this historical side of the question embraces some of the most striking advantages of our proposition. A dictionary of humbug would indeed offer by far the most acceptable form, in which history can be narrated. Take from the history of mankind the succession of humbugs, and you take from it its whole pith and marrow. Does not the principal business of great ministers consist in the safe conduct of state mysteries? Is not the maintenance of humbug the special function of all corporations? while each individual, in his private capacity, is engaged, pro modulo suo, in working out some particular imposition. Thus the quicquid agunt homines lies within the province of our lexicographer; and the farrago of the historian, and of the word-catcher is precisely the same.

From the appearance of our dictionary we should prophetically date an important revolution in the historian's art; for it would be a complete model of the way in which history should be written, so as to enlighten those who wish to be enlightened, to leave those in the dark whose eyes will not bear the light, and consequently to spare the authors those serious inconveniences which await the greater lanternbearers of the age, who, as we have stated, are rarely remarkable for coming to a good end.

Our dictionary, as an historical work, would have this singular advantage over the ordinary narratives of events, that its possession of an universal key to all transactions, would save a world of discussions, as idle as they are tedious, concerning the causes of each successive event. By far the larger part of ordinary histories is taken up in canvassing the motives of the actors, and in tracing the course of things backward to some fanciful antecedent, with which it in all probability has as little to do, as with the man in the moon, that standing type of exclusiveness, idleness, and gentility. By presenting the facts in his own peculiar light, the lexicographer of humbug plucks out the heart of their mystery, conforms to the reality of things, eviscerates their philosophy, and all without the aid of that scaffolding of comparisons, conjectures, and hypotheses, with which the Humes and the Robertsons were obliged to obscure and deform their edifices. When the language by which any event has been carried, is fairly sifted, and its humbugs translated into plain English, what more can there remain to waste a syllable upon?

This will be thoroughly understood by reference to the example of Bayle, whose dictionary was in many respects a precursor of our own. His articles, notwithstanding the veil he threw over his meaning, to accommodate the weak-sightedness of the age he addressed, are a true multum in parvo; and they leave little to be said by successors. Many of his biographies might indeed be taken as models of historic composition;-affording light enough to guide the intelligent, but a light so wrapped in clouds, as to prove a stumblingblock to the dolt, who would have taken his frankness in dudgeon, had he spoken out more distinctly.

If there be any of our readers still at a loss to peceive the full force of what we have advanced, another example perhaps will assist in clearing their intellect. One of the greatest contests of the present day relates to education, a word so obscured or neglected, that it has for ages lent itself to the grossest deceptions. It is not our present purpose to enter upon the whole dispute, for that would lead us too

far.

We shall refer only to that one humbug connected with it, which consists in teaching the boys of this nineteenth century that the Catos, the Brutuses, and the whole tribe of patricians of ancient Rome, were shining lights of patriotism and of virtue,-that the republic was a model of free government, and its laws an epitome of superhuman wisdom. All this was once taught in perfect good faith; but experience, while it discovered the fallacy, discovered also that the propagation of the error might be turned to good account. The training of the child in the way he should go, is the all in all of education; but when it was decreed that the destiny of man should be to go through life crab-fashioned, the end of education evidently became to prevent the possibility of straightforward progression. To attain this end, it was silently arranged to turn youth away from all sciences having a possible leaning to the useful, to cram them with rigmaroles accepted on authority; and thus, to early accustom them not to be startled at an absurdity. No education, indeed, can be considered complete, that does not employ both these methods. But the ancient reading of the classics of which we have spoken, while it is the root of some of the most potent and pregnant humbugs yet prevalent in society,