with the old Saxon title, king; and although
the "palaces" and "castles" of the land were
Norman things with Norman names, the
"house", the "home", the "hearth", were
Saxon. Nature, in its simplicities, the sun,
the earth, the fields, and all the familiar
relations of life; father, mother, brother, are
expressed in Saxon syllables; and so we
find the luxurious Norman superstructure to
have been erected upon Saxon ground. All
the animals—ox or cow, calf, deer, swine,
sheep—preserve old Saxon names. But since
the Norman conquerors reduced the Saxon
boors to poverty, and made them to be
keepers of the herds and fatteners thereof for
Norman appetites, we have the animals, while
living, Saxon enough; but they become, when
they have been killed and cooked, all Norman
perquisites, such as beef, veal, venison, pork,
mutton. One meat only, the Saxon claimed
—the only one a boor gets even in our own
days very often—namely, bacon.

Manners in words may be illustrated out of
the familiar syllables, husband and wife. The
Hous Band—the Binder of the Household by
his labour and by his government of love—
will always be the man; the Wife remains
at home on household cares intent, "to
weave,'"' said our forefathers, for wife and
woof are of one origin. Our word "club,"
which has no analogue in any other European
language, speaks a volume about the
manners of this country. Seen from another
point of view, the word "mob"—an
abbreviation of mobile (moveable)—characterises
perfectly the manners of the multitude,
whether we look at them bodily as they
stand in a dense crowd, shifting to and fro;
or mentally, as their opinions are stirred
and swayed at will by foolish mis-leaders.

For the morality of words, it is a good
thing that in England generally, though by
no means always, we give to bad things bad
names. Robbers in Hungary are called "the
poor people", and the phrase of pity shows
that they are forced to robbery. A black-leg
is called in France, chevalier d' Industrie,
and the phrase shows that in France vice is
too lightly regarded. Those whom we in
England call "unfortunate", the French call
"daughters of joy";  we distinguish loves
and likings, and adapt to a peculiar use the
French word amour. The French have but
one word for love, and feel no desecration in
applying it alike to wives and sweetmeats.
We might point a moral from these things.
There is a homely moral, again, in our word,
when we call the avaricious man a miser,—
miserable.

Sometimes the using of a bad word for a
bad thing springs out of a defiance of morality.
A French word often used in England, roué,
for a profligate, arose in this way. The Duke
of Orleans, Regent of France after the death
of Louis XIV., gloried in evil company. He
wilfully chose for his companions men whose
wickedness had made them worthy of
the severest punishment the law inflicted;—
breaking on the wheel. Hence he gloried in
calling them his roués; roué being a verb
derived from the French word for wheel, and
indicating the distinction for which his
associates were qualified.

We tread over uncounted wonders when we
walk, wherever upon this world's surface we
may be. A myriad of marvels are at work
within the little compass of our bodies while
we live. Beneath the primary expression of
our thoughts and wants, the stream of our
own history, inner and outer, runs wonderfully
blended with the texture of the words we
use. Dive into what subject we may, we
never touch the bottom. The simplest
prattle of a child is but the light surface of
a deep dark sea containing many treasures.

THE PASHA'S NEW BOAT.

MAKING a little excursion, the other day, by
railway, I had a sudden fancy to get out at
Staines. I was attracted by the quiet look
of the village, and its trees and hedges, in their
autumnal garb. As I strolled along, what
a contrast I felt it to the hurrying crowd of
the Strand, which I had left only forty
minutes ago! There, all noise, and numbers,
and floating smuts, and an eddy of conflicting
passengers and vehicles; here, all quietude,
and a thinly-scattered population, with green
fields round about, and the river Colne softly
and regularly gliding on its course.

But the village itself! What a change had it
undergone since last I passed through it, on
the top of a four-horse coach, spanking along
over the bridge, twenty years ago! Over
that same bridge there used at that time to
pass some six-and-thirty four-horse coaches
every day,—fine, well-appointed, gallant
turnouts, to wonder and admire at which all the
inhabitants ran to their doors, or thrust their
heads and shoulders from the windows, while
boys cheered them as they rattled past, and
ran by the side with inflated cheeks, until fairly
beyond the precincts of the village. Now,
these gallant coaches have disappeared in the
dark distance, and in the dusty clouds of science
and of change, rather than of years; and a
long passenger-train, headed by a roaring
locomotive, dashes across the village, every
half-hour, over the heads and houses of the
"oldest inhabitants."

A bright autumnal sun shines, with coy
glances, on the river Colne, which returns a
cool and pleasant smile as of yore, while the
red and yellow leaves float down its stream,
towards the flour-mill, hard by; but the trade
of the place is gone. The little traffic that
remains is, at all events, of that quiet kind
which a casual visitor unavoidably compares
with the inexplicable existence of so many
of our little towns, with their dusky little
obsolete shops, at a hundred miles distance
from the metropolis.