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    in a country . The following remarks must have been penned while lie was in very bad hands . Such captious , taffety , and affected people are to be met with occasionally , but they are not very common , and heaven forbid they should be

    !" The language—the vulgar dialect , that is—of Yorkshire , and Lancashire too , is almost as unintelligible to me as Chinese . The English critics upon our barbarous Americanisms , might well reserve their comments , and as many more as they can produce , for home consumption . They are troubled with a most patronising * and paternal anxiety , lest the English language should be lost among our common people ; it is lost among the

    common people of Yorkshire . They smile at our blunders when we say sick for ill , and fine instead of nice . They say that fine comes from the milliner ' s shop ; we might reply that nice comes from the kitchen . They are shocked when we speak of a fin e building ; but nothing is more common in England than to hear of the grandest old ruin in the kingdom as " nice old place . " As to the word sick , it is ours and not the English use that accords with the standard usage of English literature : sick , afflicted with disease—is Johnson ' s definition . "—Vol . i . p . 100 , 101 .

    In the first instance , the author ' s English was much better than that of his critics . It was he that should have been " shocked . " The expression " nice old place / ' in such an application of it , we never remember to have heard , and hope we never shall ; but we can imagine it to occur in some caricature of mincing- affectation by a farce-writer . Sick , for ill , is good old English , and modern Scotch . It is scriptural and parliamentary . We lately saw it in a notice of motion on the Poor Law Amendment Act .

    The only other traveller s slip that we have noted is in relation to English economy . Crossing in a steam-boat from Calais to Dover , Mr Dewey says : —

    " I observed that a considerable number of passengers carried a comfortable pic-nic box or basket witb ihem , and spread tbeir own table . Witb some , doubtless , tbis provision proceeded from a fastidious taste th&t feared some poisonous dirt would be found in the common fare of a steam-boat . Hut with many , I presume , it arose from a habit , which presents a marked difference between the people of Kngland and of America—I mean the habit of economy . In America we are ashamed 1

    of economy . It is this feelingwhich would forbid among us such a practice as that referred to , and not only this , but a great many more and better practices . In England , economy stands out prominently ; it presides over the arrangements of a family ; it is openly professed , and foars no reproach . A man is not ashamed to say of a certain indulgence , that he cunnot afford it . A gentleman says to you , * I drive a pony chaise this year ; I have put down my horse and

    gig , because I cannot pay the tax . A man whose income , and expenses , and style of living far exceed almost any thing to be found among us , still says of something quite beyond him , which his wealthier neighbour does , ' We are not rich enough for that . ' One of the most distinguished men in England said to me , when speaking of wines at his table , * The wine I should prefer is claret , but I cannot afford it : and so I drink my

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    602 The Old World and the New .

• Citation
  • Monthly Repository (1806-1838) and Unitarian Chronicle (1832-1833), Oct. 2, 1836, page 602, in the Nineteenth-Century Serials Edition (2008; 2018) ncse-os.kdl.kcl.ac.uk/periodicals/mruc/issues/vm2-ncseproduct2662/page/14/