may stamp it with its glory and its affection. FATHER-LAND is congenial with the language in which we find that other fine expression MOTHER-TONGUE. The patriotic neologism originated with me in Holland, when, in early life, it was my daily pursuit to turn over the glorious history of its independence under the title of _Vaderlandsche Historie_--the history of FATHER-LAND! If we acknowledge that the creation of some neologisms may sometimes produce the beautiful, the revival of the dead is the more authentic miracle; for a new word must long remain doubtful, but an ancient word happily recovered rests on a basis of permanent strength; it has both novelty and authority. A collection of _picturesque words_, found among our ancient writers, would constitute a precious supplement to the history of our language. Far more expressive than our term of _executioner_ is their solemn one of the _deathsman_; than our _vagabond_, their _scatterling_; than our _idiot_ or _lunatic_, their _moonling_,--a word which, Mr. Gifford observes, should not have been suffered to grow obsolete. Herrick finely describes by the term _pittering_ the peculiar shrill and short cry of the grasshopper: the cry of the grasshopper is pit! pit! pit! quickly repeated. Envy "_dusking_ the lustre" of genius is a verb lost for us, but which gives a more precise expression to the feeling than any other words which we could use. The late Dr. Boucher, in the prospectus of his proposed Dictionary, did me the honour, then a young writer, to quote an opinion I had formed early in life of the purest source of neology, which is in the _revival of old words_. Words that wise Bacon or brave Rawleigh spake! We have lost many exquisite and picturesque expressions through the dulness of our lexicographers, or by the deficiency in that profounder study of our writers which their labours require far more than they themselves know. The natural graces of our language have been impoverished. The genius that throws its prophetic eye over the language, and the taste that must come from Heaven, no lexicographer imagines are required to accompany him amidst a library of old books! FOOTNOTES: [19] Aulus Gellius, lib. i. c. 10. [20] Instit. lib. i. c. 5. [21] This verse was corrected by Bentley _procudere nummum_, instead of _producere nomen_, which the critics agree is one of his happy conjectures. [22] Henry Cockeram's curious little "English Dictionarie, or an Interpretation of hard English words", 12mo, 1631, professes to give in its first book "the choicest words themselves now in use, wherewith our language is inriched and become so copious." Many have not survived, such as the following:--