It will, we fear, be long before the Irish emerge so far from barbarism as to write in this style. The Irish are, however, we are happy to observe, making some little approaches to a refined and courtly style; kings, and in imitation of them, great men, and all who think themselves great--a numerous class--speak and write as much as possible in the plural number instead of the singular. Instead of _I_, they always say _we_; instead of _my, our_, according to the Italian idiom, which flatters this humour so far as to make it a point of indispensable politeness. It is, doubtless, in humble imitation of such illustrious examples, that an Irishman of the lowest class, when he means to express that he is a member of a committee, says, _I am a committee_; thus consolidating the power, wisdom, and virtue of a whole committee in his own person. Superior even to the Indian, who believes that he shall inherit the powers and virtues of his enemies after he has destroyed them;[30] this committee-man takes possession of the faculties of his living friends and associates. When some of the _united men_, as they called themselves, were examined, they frequently answered to the questions, who, or what are you? I am a com’mittéé. However extraordinary it may at first sound, to hear one man assert that he is a whole committee, it is not more wonderful than that the whole parliament of Bordeaux should be found in a one-horse chair.[31] We forbear to descant further upon Irish committee-men, lest we should call to mind, merely by the similarity of name, the times when England had her committee-men, who were not perfectly free from all tinge of absurdity. It is remarkable, that in times of popular ferment, a variety of new terms are coined to serve purposes and passions of the moment. In the days of the English committee-men this practice had risen to such a height, that it was fair game for ridicule. Accordingly, Sir John Birkenhead, about that time, found it necessary to publish, “_The Children’s Dictionary; an exact Collection of all New Words born since Nov. 3, 1640, in Speeches, Prayers, and Sermons, as well those that signify something as nothing_.” We observe that it has been likewise found necessary to publish, in France, _un Dictionnaire néologique_, a dictionary of the new terms adopted since the revolution.