Several words have passed from a literal to a figurative sense, and have thus become much wider in signification. Thus, _villain_ originally meant merely a farm-servant; _pagan_, a dweller in a village; _knave_, a boy; _idiot_, a private person; _heathen_, a dweller on a heath; _gazette_, a small coin; and _brat_, a rag or clout, especially a child’s bib or apron. _Treacle_ meant an antidote against the bites of serpents; _intoxicate_, to drug or poison; _coward_, a bob-tailed hare; and _butcher_, a slaughterer merely of he-goats. _Brand_ and _stigmatise_ still mean to mark with infamy, although the practical significance of the words is now chiefly a matter of history. Under the Romans, a slave who had proved dishonest, or had attempted to run away from his master, was branded with the three letters F U R, a thief or rascal; while it may not be generally known that in England the custom of branding the cheek of a felon with an _F_ was only abolished by statute some sixty years ago. These examples of a class of words denoting traces of customs of other days, might easily be largely multiplied; but enough has been said to remind our readers of one aspect of the historical value of our language—that is, the impress of the thoughts and practices of past generations stamped upon the words which are used in the familiar intercourse of life.—_Chambers’s Journal._ SOCIAL SCIENCE ON THE STAGE. BY H. SUTHERLAND EDWARDS. It is certainly not necessary that to every play, as to every fable, a moral easily deducible from it should be attached; though every play that presents a true picture of life must almost as a matter of course teach some lesson. _Othello_ is the drama of jealousy, _Macbeth_ the drama of ambition, _Romeo and Juliet_ the drama of passionate love; but it was not to show the danger of jealousy, of ambition, or of passionate love, that these dramas were written. A picture of the “green-eyed monster,” in all its hideousness, occurs in the first; a reflection on the futility of “vaulting ambition” in the second; and a warning of the “violent ends” produced by “violent delights” in the third. The moral purpose of the play, supposing such a purpose to exist, is not, however, in either case made obvious. In numbers of the most successful plays of modern France, on the other hand, we find a moral thesis adopted beforehand and deliberately worked out by dramatic means. This moral thesis does not necessarily embody a high moral notion. It may be, and often is, paradoxical in character. The one thing essential is that it shall assert a principle, and present a case of as dramatic a character as possible in illustration of it. The moral which, as before remarked, belongs to every incident in life, is not always an evident one; nor in the finest works of art does the moral ever lie conspicuously on the surface. But if a vivacious comedy or a dramatic play is specially intended to teach or rather to prove