The first verse of Dean Whittingham’s version of the 114th Psalm may be quoted as a curious instance of a phrase originally grave in its meaning become strangely incongruous:— When Israel by God’s address From Pharaoh’s land was bent, And Jacob’s house the strangers left And _in the same train_ went. Since the completion of the Pacific Railway, some introductory lines in Southey’s _Thalaba_ require correction:— Who at this untimely hour Wander o’er the _desert sands_? No _station_ is in view. If the author would revisit the earth, he would find numerous “stations” on the railway route across the Great American Desert. * * * * * Among funny instances of wresting from a text a meaning to suit a particular purpose, is that of the classical scholar who undertook to prove that the word “smile” was used as a euphemism for a drink in ancient times, by quoting from Horace’s _Odes_:— Amara lento temperat risu. Which is rendered by Martin:— Meets life’s _bitters_ with a jest, And _smiles_ them down. By _lento risu_, it was argued, is clearly meant a _slow_ smile, or one taken through a straw! The meaning of the word _Wretch_ is one not generally understood. It was originally, and is now, in some parts of England, used as a term of the softest and fondest tenderness. This is not the only instance in which words in their present general acceptation bear a very opposite meaning to what they did in Shakspeare’s time. The word _Wench_, formerly, was not used in the low and vulgar acceptation that it is at present. _Damsel_ was the appellation of young ladies of quality, and _Dame_ a title of distinction. _Knave_ once signified a servant; and in an early translation of the New Testament, instead of “Paul, the Servant,” we read “Paul, the Knave of Jesus Christ,” or, Paul, a rascal of Jesus Christ. _Varlet_ was formerly used in the same sense as valet. On the other hand, the word _Companion_, instead of being the honorable synonym of Associate, occurs in the play of Othello with the same contemptuous meaning which we now affix, in its abusive sense, to the word “Fellow;” for Emilia, perceiving that some secret villain had aspersed the character of the virtuous Desdemona, thus indignantly exclaims:— O Heaven! that such _Companions_ thou’dst unfold, And put in every honest hand a whip, To lash the rascal naked through the world.—iv. 2. _Villain_ formerly meant a bondman. In feudal law, according to Blackstone, the term was applied to those who held lands and tenements in _villenage_,—a tenure by base services. Pedant formerly meant a schoolmaster. Shakspeare says in his _Twelfth Night_,— A pedant that keeps a school in the church.—iii. 2.