difference, for there are no funds in the treasury upon which they are drawn. Colleges and good-for-nothing smoking-clubs are the places where these conversational fungi spring up most luxuriantly. Don't think I undervalue the proper use and application of a cant word or phrase. It adds piquancy to conversation, as a mushroom does to sauce. But it is no better than a toadstool, odious to the sense and poisonous to the intellect, when it spawns itself all over the talk of men and youths capable of talking, as it sometimes does. As we hear flash phraseology, it is commonly the dish-water from the washings of English dandyism, schoolboy or full-grown, wrung out of a three-volume novel which has sopped it up, or decanted from the pictured urn of Mr. Verdant Green, and diluted to suit the provincial climate.

"The young fellow called John spoke up sharply, and said it was 'rum' to hear me 'pitchin' into fellers' for 'goin' it in the slang line,' when I used all the flash words myself just when I pleased.

"I replied with my usual forbearance. Certainly to give up the algebraic symbol, because a or bis often a cover for ideal nihility, would be unwise. I have heard a child laboring to express a certain condition, involving a hitherto undescribed sensation (as it supposed), all of which could have been sufficiently explained by the participle bored. I have seen a country clergyman, with a one-storey intellect and a

one-horse vocabulary, who has consumed his valuable time (and mine) freely, in developing an opinion of a brother-minister's discourse, which would have been abundantly characterized by a peach-down-lipped sophomore in the one word slow. Let us discriminate, and be shy of absolute prescription. ivorous by nature and training. words as are poisonous, I can swallow most others, and chew such as I cannot swallow."

I am omniverbPassing by such

The slang question could not be much more completely disposed of than it is in this record of the Breakfast-Table conversation: and most persons, we think, will accept and endorse the Autocrat's opinions upon it. And these are quite as applicable to English talk as to American. Society here, of all grades, indulges far too widely in the use of these cant expressions and the result is a confusion of ideas. It is hard enough to give expression to thought with the aid of such appropriate words as we have, without trusting to a few words, and making them represent one of a wide range of ideas, whether appropriate for the purpose or not. As Carlyle says in the "StumpOrator," "The faithfulest, most glowing word of a man is but an imperfect image of the thought, such as it is, that dwells within him; his best word will never but with error convey his thoughts to other minds." If this be so with the most careful selection of words, and the most intense desire to choose right ones, what

sense.

result can we expect from the indiscriminate use of cant expressions? Then, undoubtedly, they have a degrading tendency-these "flash" expressions. The man who interlards his talk with them may get a reputation of being knowing, but that only in the worst Indeed the indulgence to any very great extent in the use of cant words at once betrays vulgarity. This being so, the greatest care must be taken in this matter, and cant words must be rigorously excluded, except in such few cases as it is expedient to introduce them for one of the few useful purposes they are capable of serving. And the reader will doubtless have noticed that it requires some amount of watchfulness to accomplish this, especially if any intimate acquaintance should be addicted to the vice of using them; for-without such watchfulness-we almost unconsciously imitate any intimate or frequent companion in the use of a slang expression or cant phrase to which he may be addicted. Our closing advice upon this matter is, Be careful, and don't talk slang, if you can help it.

In closing we may just quote one other interesting matter Dr. Holmes has touched upon, and that is the relative value of Argument and Opinion: and the quotation, though short, will furnish a great deal of food for thought. This is it. "A man's opinions, look you, are generally of much more value than his arguments. These last he has made by his brain, and

perhaps he does not believe the proposition they tend to prove as is often the case with paid lawyers; but opinions are formed by our whole nature-brain, heart, instinct, brute life, everything, all our experience has shaped for us by contact with the whole circle of our being."

If only some of our grand theorists could be brought to realize this, how infinitely little some of their "demonstrated propositions" would appear to them, and how quickly they would withdraw them from the world, and so cease to mislead those who are unhappily too blind to look beneath the surface of a plausible theory, and perceive the hollowness of it. Like the "Deacon," with his "wonderful one-hoss shay," they may build every part of their proposition of equal strength with every other other part; and even then, as with the "shay," the thing will collapse all at once, if it do not sooner fail through the especial weakness of some part of it.

CHAPTER XIV.

CONCLUSION.

DR. HOLMES himself says, in the " Autocrat," 'One finds himself a clever, genial, witty, wise, brilliant, sparkling, thoughtful, distinguished, celebrated, illustrious scholar, and perfect gentleman, and first writer of the age; or a dull, foolish, wicked, pert, shallow, ignorant, insolent, traitorous, black-hearted outcast, and disgrace to civilisation." He adds, "Good feeling helps society to make liars of most of us-not absolute liars, but such careless handlers of truth, that its sharp corners get terribly rounded. I love truth as chiefest among the virtues; I trust it runs in my blood; but I would never be a critic, because I know I could not always tell it."

In the face of this, one must be more than ordinarily careful in applying a "jingling string of epithets" to Dr. Holmes. And yet with all truthfulness, we think, we might apply to him, almost without exception, the set of qualities which he has first given us as an extreme example of flattery. And our disposition to

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