vehicle which is not a drag (or dwag) is a
"trap" or a "cask;" his lordship's lodgings
in Jermyn Street are his "crib," his
"diggings" or he "hangs out" there. His father
is his "governor;" his bill discounter a
"dreadful old screw," if he refuses to do a
"bit of stiff" for him. When his friend has
mortgaged his estate, he pronounces it to be
"dipped." Everything that pleases him is
"crushing, by Jove!" everything that
displeases him (from bad sherry to a writ from
his tailor) is "infernal."

Then there is the slang of criticism. Literary,
dramatic, artistic, and scientific. Such
words as æsthetic, transcendental, the
"harmonies," the unities, a myth: such phrases
as an exquisite morçeau on the big drum,
a scholarlike rendering of John the Baptist's
great toe; "keeping," "harmony," "middle
distance," "aerial perspective," "delicate
handling," "nervous chiaroscuro," and the
like, are made use of pell-mell, without the
least relation to their real meanings, their
real uses, their real requirements.

And the Stage has its slang, both before
and behind the curtain. Actors speak of
such and such a farce being a "screamer,"
and such and such a tragedy being "damned"
or "goosed." If an actor forgets his part
while on the stage, he is said to "stick " and
to "corpse " the actors who may be performing
with him, by putting them out in their
parts. A "part" has so many "lengths;"
a piece will "run " so many nights. Belville
is going in the country to "star " it. When
no salaries are forthcoming on Saturday, the
"ghost doesn't walk"—a benefit is a "ben,"
a salary a "sal;" an actor is not engaged to
play tragedy or comedy, but to "do the heavy
business," or "second low comedy," and when
he is out of an engagement he is said to be
"out of collar."

Thus through all grades and professions
of life runs this omnipresent slang.

In the immense number of new words
which are being continually coined and
disseminated throughout our gigantic periodical
press lies, I conceive, the chief difficulty of the
English language to foreigners. The want of
any clear and competent authority as to what
words are classical and what merely slang,
what obsolete and what improper, must be a
source of perpetual tribulation and uncertainty
to the unhappy stranger. If he is to take
Johnson and Walker for standards, a walk
from Charing Cross to Temple Bar, an hour
at a theatre, or an evening in society, will
flood his perturbed tympanum with a deluge
of words concerning which Johnson and
Walker are absolutely mute. How is the
foreigner to make his election? Suppose the
unfortunate Monsieur, or Herr, or Signor
should address himself to write, as De Lolme
did, a treatise on the English constitution.
Suppose he were to begin a passage thus:—
"Though Lord Protocol was an out-and-out
humbug, Sir Reddy Tapewax was not such a
flat as to be taken in. He proved the gammon
of Lord Protocol's move, and, though he
thought him green, did him completely
brown." How many young politicians would
not think it beneath them to talk in this
manner, yet how bitterly the foreign essayist
would be ridiculed for his conversational
style of composition.

The French have an Academy of Letters,
and the dictionary of that Academy,
published after forty years labour, nearly two
centuries ago, is still the standard model of
elegance and propriety in composition and
conversation. The result of this has been
that every work of literary excellence in
France follows the phraseology, and within
very little the orthography which we find in
the poetry of Racine and Boileau, and the
prose of Pascal and Fénélon. And the French
has become, moreover, the chief diplomatic
conversational and commercial language in the
world. It is current everywhere. It is neither so
copious, so sonorous, or so dignified as English
or German, but it is fixed. The Emperor of
Russia or the Sultan of Turkey may write and
speak (accent apart) as good French as any
Parisienne. But in England, an Englishman
even has never done learning his own
language. It has no rules, no limits; its
orthography and pronunciation are almost entirely
arbitrary; its words are like a provisional
committee, with power to add to their
number. A foreigner may hope to read and
write English tolerably well, after assiduous
study; but he will never speak it without a
long residence in England; and even then he
will be in no better case than the English
bred Englishman, continually learning,
continually hearing words of whose signification
he has not the slightest idea, continually
perplexed to as what should be considered
a familiar idiom, and what inadmissible
slang.

To any person who devotes himself to
literary composition in the English language
the redundancy of unauthorised words and
expressions must always be a source of
unutterable annoyance and vexation. Should
he adopt the phraseology and style of the
authors of the eras of Elizabeth or Anne he
may be censured as obsolete or as perversely
quaint. Should he turn to the Latin tongue
for the construction of his phrases and the
choice of his language, he will be stigmatised
as pedantic or with that grave charge of
using hard words. And, should he take
advantage of what he hears and sees in his
own days and under his own eyes, and
incorporate into his language those idiomatic
words and expressions he gathers from the
daily affairs of life and the daily conversation
of his fellow men, he will have no lack of
critics to tell him that he writes insufferable
vulgarity and slang.

Her Majesty Queen Anne is dead; but for
Her Majesty's decease we should have had
an Academy of Letters and an Academy