weet wench." It would not
now be proper to call your sweetheart a hag--that compliment is
reserved for the use of her grandchildren.

HALF, n. One of two equal parts into which a thing may be divided, or
considered as divided. In the fourteenth century a heated discussion
arose among theologists and philosophers as to whether Omniscience
could part an object into three halves; and the pious Father
Aldrovinus publicly prayed in the cathedral at Rouen that God would
demonstrate the affirmative of the proposition in some signal and
unmistakable way, and particularly (if it should please Him) upon the
body of that hardy blasphemer, Manutius Procinus, who maintained the
negative. Procinus, however, was spared to die of the bite of a
viper.

HALO, n. Properly, a luminous ring encircling an astronomical body,
but not infrequently confounded with "aureola," or "nimbus," a
somewhat similar phenomenon worn as a head-dress by divinities and
saints. The halo is a purely optical illusion, produced by moisture
in the air, in the manner of a rainbow; but the aureola is conferred
as a sign of superior sanctity, in the same way as a bishop's mitre,
or the Pope's tiara. In the painting of the Nativity, by Szedgkin, a
pious artist of Pesth, not only do the Virgin and the Child wear the
nimbus, but an ass nibbling hay from the sacred manger is similarly
decorated and, to his lasting honor be it said, appears to bear his
unaccustomed dignity with a truly saintly grace.

HAND, n. A singular instrument worn at the end of the human arm and
commonly thrust into somebody's pocket.

HANDKERCHIEF, n. A small square of silk or linen, used in various
ignoble offices about the face and especially serviceable at funerals
to conceal the lack of tears. The handkerchief is of recent
invention; our ancestors knew nothing of it and intrusted its duties
to the sleeve. Shakespeare's introducing it into the play of
"Othello" is an anachronism: Desdemona dried her nose with her skirt,
as Dr. Mary Walker and other reformers have done with their coattails
in our own day--an evidence that revolutions sometimes go backward.

HANGMAN, n. An officer of the law charged with duties of the highest
dignity and utmost gravity, and held in hereditary disesteem by a
populace having a criminal ancestry. In some of the American States
his functions are now performed by an electrician, as in New Jersey,
where executions by electricity have recently been or