Much learning might be displayed, and much time wasted, on an inquiry into the derivation, descent, and etymology of the animal under consideration. Suffice it to say, that for my own part, diligence hath not been wanting in the research. Johnson’s Dictionary and old Bailey, have been ransacked; but neither the learned Johnson, nor the recondite Bailey, throw much light upon this matter. The Slang Dictionary, to which I should in the first place have directed my attention, was unfortunately not within my reach. The result of all my inquiries amounts to this--that _bore_, _boor_, and _boar_, are all three spelt indifferently, and _consequently_ are derived from one common stock,--what stock, remains to be determined. I could give a string of far-fetched derivations, each of them less to the purpose than the other; but I prefer, according to the practice of our great lexicographer, taking refuge at once in the Coptic. Of one point there can be little doubt--that bores existed in ancient as well as in modern times, though the deluge has unluckily swept away all traces of the antediluvian bore--a creature which analogy leads us to believe must have been of formidable power. We find them for certain in the days of Horace. That plague, worse, as he describes, than asthma or rheumatism, that prating, praising thing which caught him in the street, stuck to him wherever he went--of which, stopping or running, civil or rude, shirking or cutting, he could never rid himself--what was he but a bore? In Pope I find the first description in English poetry of the animal--whether imitated from Horace, or a drawing from life, may be questioned. But what could that creature be but a bore, from whom he says no walls could guard him, and no shades could hide; who pierced his thickets; glided into his grotto; stopped his chariot; boarded his barge; from whom no place was sacred--not the church free; and against whom John was ordered to tie up the knocker? Through the indexes to Milton and Shakspeare I have not neglected to hunt; but unfortunately, I have found nothing to my purpose in Milton, and in all Shakspeare no trace of a bore; except it be that _thing_, that popinjay, who so pestered Hotspur, that day when he, faint with toil and dry with rage, was leaning on his sword after the battle--all that bald, disjointed talk, to which Hotspur, past his patience, answered neglectingly, he knew not what, and that sticking to him with questions even when his wounds were cold. It must have been a bore of foreign breed, not the good downright English bore. All the classes, orders, genera, and species of the animal, I pretend not to enumerate. Heaven forefend!--but some of those most commonly met with in England, I may mention, and a few of the most curious, describe.