commenced, poor Seymour committed suicide, and Mr Hablot K. Browne was selected to continue the illustrations, which he did under the signature of "Phiz." Meanwhile, Mr Dickens had courted and married the daughter of Mr George Hogarth, then, and now, a musical writer; a man of considerable attainments, and who, in his earlier days, whilst a writer to the Signet in Edinburgh, enjoyed the intimate friendship of Sir Walter Scott, Jeffrey, and the other literary notables at that day adorning the Modern Athens. The great success of _Pickwick_ brought down upon its author demands from all sides for another work, and "Boz" agreed to write _Nicholas Nickleby_, to be published in monthly parts. In the prefatory notices, which give additional value to the cheap and elegant reprint of the works of Dickens, we are indulged with slight glimpses of his own recollections, personal and literary.' It is unnecessary to note the titles of Mr Dickens's subsequent works, all of which have justly obtained popularity. He has latterly entered on a path not dissimilar to our own, and in this he has our very best wishes. The cause of social melioration needs a union of hearts and hands. FOOTNOTES: [2] Bogue, London: 1852. ARCHBISHOP WHATELY'S BOOK OF SYNONYMS. Accuracy of language is one of the things which, in ordinary speech and writing, is but indifferently observed. The reason, perhaps, is to be sought, not in any general indifference to correctness or precision, but rather in the want of some recognised authority, some specific rules or principles, to which the use of words apparently synonymous, yet of slightly different signification, might be distinctly and easily referred. It is in regard to the finer shades of meaning, the subtler touches of expression, the application of words and phrases where the strictest exactness and perspicuity are required, that an ordinary English style is apt to become loose and shadowy; and it is precisely here that we are entitled to expect the severest, chastest form of utterance. Coleridge used to complain of a general confounding of the word 'notion' with 'idea,' and was often at great pains to point out the distinction between the two, as also between many other words similarly misused. Archdeacon Hare, too, has remarked upon the common misapplication of such words as 'education' for 'instruction,' 'government' for 'administration,' 'the church' for 'the priesthood' or 'ministry;' and indeed holds that such a confounding of terms leads to serious practical misunderstandings and confusions.[3] Any one, upon reflection, will perceive that in the common use of these and numberless other words, there is often a signal lack of clearness and precision, and will hardly fail to notice that the error proceeds from a want of due attention to the nice and peculiar meanings of words which are vaguely presumed to have the same signification.