formly taken as conveying an insult: I mean the addressing a person by the appellation of "good man," or "good woman." What these words strictly convey, it would be, perhaps, difficult to say; but it must be presumed that the innuendo is very base, since it excites so great a degree of indignation where it is applied. In France, Bonhommie conveys an insinuation of folly or dupery not very creditable to the morality of the country; since it implies that simplicity of character has no chance in society—that chi non sa fingere non sa vivere—and that not to deceive others is, like playing a fair game with sharpers, to strip yourself and ruin your children. A fripon fripon et demi is, therefore, the standard of morality of all who are not born idiots, and bon homme is equivalent to cuckold or gull.
In England, however, this is not the case: good man and good woman signify rather (as far as the phrase is intelligible) vagabond, rascal, one of the dregs of the people. By which we plainly see, that if "the quality" have not abandoned all notion that goodness is a part of greatness, at least their inferiors think so. Yet if any one doubts that the china ware of God's creation do really calumniate themselves by agreeing with the crockery in this notion, he has only to ask himself what would be the consequence of calling a gentleman good man:—"Odds pistols and triggers!" there would be no avoiding a duel. Indeed, I would not advise a peaceable man to call even a fish-wife "good woman;" he had better call her a at once. The Athenians, who were a very sensitive if not always a very sensible people, were much alive to verbal distinctions; they would not endure even that a prison should be called by its proper name; although, if Aristophanes be taken as a witness against them, they had no objection to calling a spade a spade. The English, who (in virtue, I suppose, of their free government) imitate the Greeks in so many particulars, are daily approaching them in this delicacy. What a quarrel would a man get into who talked of Ducks on the Stock Exchange; or if, in the other Exchange he happened to call Accommodation (which is a good word and comes of accommodo) flying kites! Revolution is sixty-four per cent., a worse word than it was thirty years ago; Reform has wholly fallen into disrepute; and, as things are going, even Religion itself is in danger of losing its character. The French have a dictionary of revolutionary neologisms, and we are daily more and more in want of a book of the same sort. In a short time I hope to be enabled to lay a specimen of such a work before the public by which we may have our tongues, like our hair, "cut in the newest fashion," and speak in words as well starched as our cravats. I therefore beseech the reader not to judge of the author of this paper, by the paper itself; but to take him, on the faith of his own word, till further notice—for "a very proper spoken gentleman," with which prayer, for the present, I heartily bid him farewell. M.
