sides plenty of local names (including Bowery, now the Alsatia of New York, but "once the pleasant Bouvery or garden-bower of Dutch governors"), some general words; e. g., overslaugh (from overslaan to skip) for preferring an outsider over the heads of those entitled by seniority. A more familiar instance is boss from the Dutch baas, an overseer.

"I suppose

to die in this State, until he has paid $10 for a new pair of boots with which to kick the bucket. Section 2. Any Chinaman dying under this Act shall be buried six feet under ground. Section 3. Any Chinaman who attempts to dig up another Chinaman's bones, shall first procure a license from the Secretary of State, for which he shall pay $4. Section 4. Any dead Chinaman who attempts to dig up his own bones, without giving due notice to the Secretary of State, shall be fined $100."

the Queen is your boss now," said a Yankee stagedriver to Lord Carlisle. "I did not boss the job, it was sister," cried a Yankee child five years old, when he wanted to charge his sister with being the aggressor in a quarrel. The French words are not many; but prairie and sault (now pronounced soo) are from that source. Some French local names appear in strange masquerade: Bois Brûlé is Bob Ruly, Chemin Couvert is Smack Cover, Rivière du Purgatoire is Picketwire. With plenty of French fashions, some French phrases have also found their way. A Confederate soldier who was picked out of a ditch, where he lay apparently dead, at Gettysburgh, told General Lee that he was not hurt or scared, but "terribly demoralized." The Spaniard has contributed negro, mulatto, quadroon, and its bastard derivative octoroon. He seems also to have contributed filibuster, the verb of which has now the political sense of manoeuvring to delay a final vote. More Spanish words, such as ranche, a farm, and stampede (estampida) are coming from California and New Mexico. The German, though he has added so vast an element to the population, has not added, according to Dr. De Vere, a dozen important words to the language, so rapidly has he been absorbed into Yankeedom. One well-known German word is lager: while loafer (läufer) expresses the dislike of an industrious people for those who lead an irregular and unsettled life. From the negro come Buckra, and indirectly marooning, which originally denoted the life of a runaway negro in the wilds, but is now used for picnicking. The Negro English, however, is a dialect of itself, and has acquired through the negro minstrelsy a place in literature. Dr. de Vere goes so far as to say that "America owes the negro no small gratitude for the only national poetry which it possesses, as distinct from all imitation of old English verses and all competition with the English writers of our day." The Chinaman is bringing in a little Canton jargon, such as first-chop for first-rate; and kootoo, or kowtow, low bowing, is a Chinese word. But the introduction of Chinese words and of the Chinaman himself will be difficult while the feeling of the people in the West against him remains what it is now. Dr. de Vere cites a set of resolutions which he says were actually moved, though not carried, in the Legislature of Oregon in 1870. "Be it enacted by the Legislative Assembly of the State of Oregon:-Section 1. No Chinaman shall be allowed

"The Great West," says Dr. de Vere, "has impressed the stamp of its own life even more forcibly (than New England) in the speech of its sons. Everything is on such a gigantic scale there that the vast proportions with which the mind becomes familiar, beget unconsciously a love of hyperbole, which in its turn irresistibly invites to humour. Life is an unceasing activity there, and hence speech also is racy with life and vigour. All is new there to those who come from older countries or crowded cities, and hence new words are continually coined, and old ones receive new meanings; nature is fresh and young there, and hence the poetic feeling is excited, and speech assumes unconsciously the rhythm and the elevation of poetry." From the chapter which follows, and from our own experience of Western talk, we should say that humorous hyperbole, rather than elevated poetry, was the characteristic of the West. Land settling has produced some terms, humorous but not poetic. "Any man who has married a lively blonde, and sees himself reflected in two blue eyes, has thereby made himself sure of heaven, having preempted two quarter-sections of it and settled on the same." Locate has been the unhappy parent of a line of similar barbarisms, such as orate and donate, culminating, or rather reaching the lowest abyss, in vocate and missionate. The terms derived from pioneer life are legion: Stump oratory is among them, and so, we presume, is axe-grinding. To save, i. e., to make safe by shooting dead, is, it seems, a term of frontier hunting and warfare. "I calculate, Mr. Hossifer (officer) that war the most decisivest and the most sanguinariest fight you ever seen in all your born days, We boys, we up and pitched in thar and we give the yaller bellies the most particular Hail Columby. We chawed 'em all up; we laid 'em out colder nor a wedge; we saved every mother's son of 'um-we did that 'ar little thing, boss." Honey-fugling, used for kissing by the classic lips of Susan B. Anthony, is a term, it seems, of Western bee-hunting. A question having been propounded by a philological enquirer in Harper's Monthly as to the meaning of the phrase, the answer was, "It is cutting it too fat over the left."

The language of the New England Church, as well as the temper of the New Englander, bears traces of

the fact that with the Puritans "antagonism was the normal condition of life." The great object was to differ in phraseology, as well as in customs, from the old country. The peculiar extravagances of religious enthusiasm in the new world, have also produced some new terms, such as jerks for religious convulsions. The terms Hard Shell Baptists, and Soft Shell Baptists, grotesquely denote one instance of the universal disintegration, which, under the action of liberalizing influences, is taking place in all the Churches of the United States from the Episcopalian to the Quaker. Mormonism and Spiritualism are the latest sources of religious additions, if religious additions they can be called, to the English of the New World.

From politics have come a host of terms, all of them vulgar, and almost all of them denoting something tricky and roguish. The political vocabulary of our neighbours is pretty well known here. Our readers may, however, be glad to be informed that the term gerrymandering, denoting the fraudulent division of a State into districts, so as to give the party which has the minority in number a majority of the votes, is derived from the name of its inventor, Mr. Elbridge Gerry, a prominent politician of the State now adorned by General Butler. Buncombe, log-rolling, lobbyiug, land-grabbing, ballot-box stuffing, repeating, ring, are too well known. Pipelaying is less familiar; it was derived from a scheme for importing voters from Philadelphia into New York, which was concealed under the form of a contract for laying water-pipes from the Croton aqueduct. The etymology of the caucus, which under the system of party government, has practically superseded the constitutional legislature, is lost in philological night. The term has been wildly derived from scyphus, a divining cup! A pincher is "a bill which promises to secure a pecuniary reward to those who are interested in its defeat." A rooster (our cousins are too delicate to say cock) is a bill which will benefit the legislators, and no one else." The vocabulary is of course rich in new terms for illicit gains, chickenpie being one of the latest. We knew what wirepulling was, but we did not know that peculiar skill in it was called sculduggery. To crawfish is equivalent to ratting in English. Sound on the goose seems to baffle etymology; but it means sound on the main question. Highfalutin is equally puzzling to the philologist, who desperately struggles to find a derivation for it in high-flying, high-floating, and even in the Dutch verlooten—to flay by whipping. Spread Eagleism, on the contrary, calls for no philological research. As a practical illustration of its meaning Dr. de Vere gives an extract from the Report of Legislative Proceedings in Indiana-"The American people and we are proud to call ourselves that-are

rocked in the bosom of two mighty oceans, whose granite-bound shores are whitened by the floating canvass of the commercial world; reaching from the ice-fettered lakes of the north to the febrile waves of Australian seas, comprising the vast interim of five billions of acres, whose alluvial plains, romantic mountains and mystic rivers rival the wildest Utopian dreams that ever gathered round the inspired bard, as he walked the Amaranthine promenades of Hesperian gardens, is proud Columbia, the land of the free and the home of the brave." Free soil, free labour and free love are terms of which the first two are pregnant with evil memories of the past, while the last is full of evil omen for the future. Skedaddle, a word of the civil war, has been pretty well incorporated into the slang portion of the English language. etymology seems to be satisfactorily traced to the Scotch or Scandinavian language, in both of which the word means to spill water or milk from a pail. "Trade of all kinds" has, of course, contributed its quota. Dr. de Vere has the candour to admit that "if the English are a nation of shop-keepers, the Americans are not unmindful of the same source of wealth." He, however, charges to the account of England the phrase Almighty Dollar, begging Englishmen to recall the first lines of Ben Jonson's epistle to the Countess of Holland ::

Its

"Whilst that for which all virtue now is sold, And almost every vice, almightie gold." But the omnipotence of gold, though not of greenbacks, has been the complaint of all lands and ages. "Money itself," says Dr. de Vere, has in the United States, as in England, more designations than any other object, liquor alone excepted." He admits, however that the English Slang Dictionary does not comprise John Davis, Ready John, spondulics, dooteroomus or doot, tow, wad, hardstuff or hard, dirt, shinplasters, wherewith, shad scales, or scales, dyestuffs, charms, stamps. Bogus is rather unexpectedly derived from the noble Italian name Borghese, borne by an itinerant drawer of fictitious notes, checks and bills of exchange, whose genius merited a monument in our language since he succeeded in swindling Yankee smartness out of large sums. Skinning is resorted to whenever the merchant is short; and short is a word of large significance and 'great practical utility. "A common practice is to withhold a little of a poor sewing-girl's pay from week to week, on the plea of being short, and when a handsome aggregate has been reached, to boldly deny the debt." As to the vocabulary of liquors and liquoring, we really must disclaim for the backward and torpid old country anything like rivalry with the foremost of

nations.

"Afloat" is said to have contributed schooner,

scoon in New England being used to express the skipping of stones thrown so as to skim over the surface of the water. It has certainly contributed flummadiddle, a nautical mess, at the mention of which New England fishermen lick their chops, and among the main ingredients of which are pork-fat and molasses. Aboard used with reference to a land conveyance is also an innovation. To go ahead is English enough; but when a New York journal remarked that in this complication of European difficulties a favourable opportunity was offered to American go-aheaditiveness," it enriched the maternal tongue at the same time that it painted American character. We should have thought that to the list of "Afloat" might have been added bust up and gone up, which sound like word-pictures of steamboat travelling in the States :

Coroner-Witness, when did you last see de

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On The Rail," democracy, afraid of saying first and second class, has been obliged to draw on its magnificent imagination for such splendid aliases as Palace Cars and Silver Palace Cars; and at last we suppose it will come to Gold and Diamond. The Cowcatcher depicts the unfenced state of an American railroad, and baggage-smasher too well describes the American porter. The verb telescope is a railroad word of still more unpleasant import. "The frequency," observes Dr. de Vere, with scientific calmness, "with which trains collide on American railways has led to the use of the word for the purpose of designating the manner in which, on such occasions, one train is apt to run right into the other, as the smaller parts of the telescope glide into the larger.

"Natural History," of course, supplies a number of special terms. But big bug, for a person of consequence, is an addition to the general language; and so is rooster "an American ladyism," which has so far supplanted the less lady-like term that an English traveller professes to have heard of “a rooster and ox story." The unapproachable qualities of the skunk have also given him, as was his due, a place in the language beyond the mere pale of natural history.

"Of" Old Friends with New Faces," there is a very long list. What was good English when the Pilgrim Fathers left England has, in many instances, since become obsolete or provincial. When an American lady tells you that she "dotes on bugs," meaning that she is fond of entomology, her language is perfectly classical, though archaic. A number of peculiar modes of spelling also, such as becase and bile (for boil), are not vulgarisms, but archaisms. Of all the perplexing words to a native of the old country in America, the most perplexing is clever. "This troublesome word," says Dr. de Vere, "a favourite with our race wherever they are, can neither be traced back to an undoubted derivation, nor defined in its meaning beyond cavil: used in England generally for good-looking (?) or handy and dexterous, it means in Norfolk, rather, honest and respectable, and sounds there like claver. In some districts of Southern Wales it indicates a state of good health; in a few southern counties perfect clearness and completeness, and in other parts, as with us, courtesy and affability. The American pet word smart has however largely superseded it in our speech, and

only in Virginia and some parts of the South clever is still much used in its old English meaning of skilful at work and talented in mind." Transpire for occur is not an old friend with a new face, but an old friend with face horribly distorted. John Randolph was quite right when he called out to a speaker in Congress who had used it repeatedly, "If you say transpire once more, I shall expire. Gentleman and lady, as might have been expected, "have no longer in America any distinctive meaning." The Duke of Saxe Weimar was asked, "Are you the man that wants to go to Selma?" and upon assenting, he was told: "Then I'm the gentleman that is going to drive you." Nothing sounds more intensely vulgar to an English ear than the universal substitution in the United States of lady for woman. "Wanted, two competentent sales-ladies." Dr. de Vere cites a distinguished writer as authority for the statement that an orator said in a public meeting where bonnets predominated, "The ladies were the last at the Cross and the first at the Tomb."

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The heading " Cant and Slang," also presents an embarras de richesses. We like flambustious (showy), slantendicular and sockdolager-the last said to be a corruption of doxology. But our favourite on the whole is catawampous. A political character in the Legislature of Missouri, attacked by a host of hostile orators, was said to have been catawampously chawed up." Then again, the great West, with "the matchless features of nature on the largest scale ever beheld by man, &c.," plays a great part; but "the low-toned newspaper written for the masses," in the opinion of Dr. de Vere, plays a still greater part. The degradation of a national language in point of fact generally keeps pace with the degradation of national character, of which it becomes in turn no important source.

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The last heading is "New Forms and Nicknames." New nicknames of course must be invented for new persons and places. But we protest against such new forms as to erupt, to excurt, to resurrectionize, to itemize, to custodize, to resolute, as barbarism in the very deepest sense of the word. The terms clergywoman and chairwoman (President of a Woman's Rights Meeting) are still more repulsive, though not on philological grounds.

We are much indebted to Dr. de Vere for his work, and beg leave to commend it to all British tourists in the United States, as the means of acquir ing a familiarity with the idiom which cannot fail to render them acceptable to the natives. We trust that it will also find its way into the hands of the Archduke Alexis, who may then win all hearts by promising that between the bear and the eagle the British lion shall be catawampously chawed up.

THE FIRST ENGLISH CONQUEST OF CANADA; with some account of the earliest settlements in Nova Scotia and Newfoundland, by Henry Kirke, M.A., B. C. L., Oxon. London: Bemrose & Sons.

We have here from Mr. Henry Kirke, author of Thurstan Meverell, the first detailed history, by an English writer, of the First English Conquest of Canada, in 1629. There are numerous French accounts of that event, in which the hero, Captain David Kirke, whose name is so transformed as to be barely recognizable, and whose career is ranked among the buccaneers of America, is painted in no

enviable colours. The namesake of that conquering Captain does full, if tardy, justice to his merits. Captain David Kirke, with two brothers, Lewis and Thomas, sailed up the St. Lawrence, with half a dozen vessels, the largest of which was only 300 tons, and made an easy conquest of the starving garrison of Quebec. Kirke, who had acted under letters of marque, was greatly disgusted, when despoiled of the fruits of his conquest by the restoration of Canada to France. That Government agreed to pay him an indemnity of £20,000, of which he never received a farthing. The £60,000 which the backers of Kirke had advanced to set the expedition afloat was all lost. Kirke got an empty title and a grant of Newfoundland, which he lived to see revoked. In telling the story of Kirke, the author has drawn much of his materials from State papers in the Record Office. The history of Canada can be written only by one who has access to these papers; and let us here urge the necessity of copies of them being obtained for the Parliamentary Library at Ottawa. With the Paris documents already there, they would complete the materials out of which our national history can be written. When off the track of the main story, Mr. Kirke is content with very secondary materials; relying on the authority of Macgregor and Haliburton, authors of our time, when he might have consulted the voyage of Cartier and the History of Lescarbot. He writes for Pontgravé, Pontgrave; Gaspé, Gaspè; and Saguenay, Saghanny; he fails to identify the island of St. John with that of Prince Edward, and Bacailos with any place. He supposes Bacailos to be the Indian name of codfish. If he had consulted Lescarbot (ed. 1618) he would have read : Quant au nom de Bacailos il est de l'imposition de nos Basques, lesquels appellent une morue Bacailos, et à leur imitation nos peuples (Indians) ont appris à nommer aussi la morue Bacailos." It is certain that the word came from Spain or Portugal; whether it were first applied by Biscayan fishermen, or by Corte Real, the Portuguese navigator. But in spite of this, and other omissions and minor errors, Mr. Kirke has given us the best and most authentic account of the deeds of his namesake. The policy of restoring Canada to its original owners in 1632, he strongly condemns; but surely he does not sufficiently reflect that if it had been retained then, it would almost certainly have followed the fortunes of he other English Colonies in 1776.

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WOMEN; OR CHRONICLES OF THE LAte War. By Mary Tucker Magill. Baltimore: Turnbull Brothers.

The thread of the story in this book is slight; but it serves to connect a series of very vivid pictures of life in the South during the war for Southern independence. It is another proof that, though the extension of slavery may have been the motive of the leaders of Secession, the conflict, once commenced, became on the part of the Southern people a real struggle for national existence, carried on with fervent patriotism and unbounded self-devotion. It is evident, too, from this among other manifestations of Southern feeling, that, though crushed under the heel of the conqueror, Southern patriotism still lives and glows; lives and glows perhaps even with sufficient intensity to carry in itself the earnest of ultimate

independence. It was always said that the women exceeded the men in enthusiasm, and this book confirms that impression: indeed, the display of female patriotism seems to have been carried to such a length as partly to justify the Federal Commanders in sometimes thinking less of the privileges of beauty than of the necessities of war. We get portraits from the life of several notable men, and descriptions of several notable scenes. There is Stonewall Jackson, of course, idol of every Southern heart and eye, "with his tall, gaunt figure, ungainly in its proportions, awkward in its movements, sitting erect with military stiffness upon his saddle, with his sharply defined and resolute features, and eye of mild hue but gleaming with fire. There is Ashby, whose portrait might almost be taken for one of Graham of Claverhouse. On the Federal side there passes before us, among other forms, that of General Cluseret, late General of the Parisian Commune, then, according to his own account, representing European Republicanism in the Federal camp. He appears at Winchester, issuing a requisition upon the depleted larders of the town for five thousand pounds of bacon, and threatening that if the bacon were not forthcoming by the time specified, the town should be given up to the soldiers. 'Citizens, conduct the Republic, one and indivisible, to the suspected citizens' strong-box.' But perhaps the most interesting thing in the volume is the description of Richmond after the entrance of the Federal conquerors, of the suspense respecting the fate of General Lee's army, and of the reception of the news of his surrender.

"Very little allusion was made from the pulpits to the condition of affairs: indeed it had been forbidden so far as prayers for the Confederacy were concerned; but no order could govern the nation's heart, and many an anguished supplication ascended to heaven from those altars for the little band of fugitives whose cause was even then beyond the reach of prayer. "One old Baptist minister prayed:

"O Lord, thou who seest our hearts, knowest what we so earnestly desire, but dare not specify in words, Grant it, O Lord, grant it!'

It

"About eight o'clock at night, the tense nerves of the people vibrated painfully at the sound of a gun, and before its echoes died away another followed, and another and another, until sixty were counted. was a salute to celebrate some triumph. What could it be? They dared not think. At last the suspense grew too horrible to be borne; even certainty could be no worse.

"Ellen Randolph, opening her window and seeing a Federal soldier passing by, called out : "Can you tell me the meaning of those guns?' "What say?' said the man, approaching the window.

"Can you tell me the meaning of those guns?' repeated the young lady, tremulously.

"Yes, ma'am: them guns is fired to celebrate the surrender of General Lee's army.'

"He heard something like a gurgling, choking sound as the figure disappeared from the window. It was the dying gasp of hope in the young heart.

"After some days the disbanded soldiers of the dead cause began to flock back to the city, with bowed heads and bleeding hearts. They told with eloquence which alone is the offspring of true feeling, of the last hour of the life of the Army of Northern Virginia; of the hard ships of the march, when the expected rations failed to reach them, and how the soldiers were obliged to