is, on the whole, quicker
and wittier than the English) with apt and luminous colloquial
metaphors; and I know not why Mr. Tucker should disclaim the credit.

He next sets forth to show how recent English writers are corrupting the
language; and, in doing so, he falls into some curious errors.

Dickens was boldly innovating when he made Silas Wegg say, "Mr. Boffin,
I never bargain"--"haggle," it would seem, is the proper word. But if
Mr. Tucker will look into the matter, he will find it extremely probable
that this was the original sense of the word "bargain," and quite
certain that it was a very early sense; for instance--

"So worthless peasants bargain for their wives,
As market-men for oxen, sheep, or horse."

I HENRY VI., V. v. 53.

And, in any case, is it possible to set up such a distinction between
"bargaining" and "haggling" as to be worth an international wrangle?
"Starved" for frozen is to Mr. Tucker an innovation; it was used both by
Shakespeare and Milton. "Assist" in the sense of to "be present at" is
an "absurd" innovation; it was used by Gibbon and by Prescott, a
"tolerably good authority," says Mr. Tucker himself, "in the use of
English." Miss Yonge is taken to task for saying, "Theodora _flung_ away
and was rushing off;" but Milton says, "And crop-full out of doors he
flings." Charles Reade "is guilty of such phrases as 'Wardlaw whipped
before him,' 'Ransome whipped before it;'" but the Princess in _Love's
Labour's Lost_ is guilty of saying, "Whip to our tents, as roes run
o'er the land," and the word occurs in the same sense in Ben Jonson and
Steele, to search no further. The simple fact is that Mr. Tucker has not
happened to note the intransitive sense of "to fling" and "to whip,"
which has been current in the best authors for centuries. He is very
severe on the English habit of "inserting utterly superfluous words,"
instancing from Lord Beaconsfield, "He was _by way of_ intimating that
he was engaged on a great work," and, from a magazine, "She was _by way
of_ painting the shrimp girl." Now, this is not an elegant expression,
and for my part I should be at some pains to avoid it; but it has a
perfectly distinct meaning, and is not a mere redundancy. If Mr. Tucker
supposes that "She was by way of painting the shrimp girl" means exactly
the same as "She was painting the shrimp girl," he misses one of the
fine shades of the English language. Similarly, his remark on the
"peculiar misuse of