itself,
should make us watchful that it be not dimmed by the boorish breath of
ignorance or cacophanized by unmusical voices. We therefore protest
against a useful and tuneful noun-substantive, a native of France, the
word _bouquet_, being maimed into _boquet_, a corruption as dissonant
to the ear as were to the eye plucking a rose from a variegated
nosegay, and leaving only its thorny stem. _Boquet_ is heard at times
in well-upholstered drawing-rooms, and may even be seen in print.
Offensive in its mutilated shape, it smells sweet again when restored
to its native orthography.

BY NO MANNER OF MEANS. The most vigorous writers are liable, in
unguarded moments, to lapse into verbal weakness, and so you
meet with this vulgar pleonasm in Ruskin.

BY REASON OF. An ill-assorted, ugly phrase, used by accomplished
reviewers and others, who ought to set a purer example.

COME OFF. Were a harp to give out the nasal whine of the bagpipe, or
the throat of a nightingale to emit the caw of a raven, the aesthetic
sense would not be more startled and offended than to hear from
feminine lips, rosily wreathed by beauty and youth, issue the words,
"The concert will _come off_ on Wednesday." This vulgarism should
never be heard beyond the "ring" and the cock-pit, and should be
banished from resorts so respectable as an oyster-cellar.

CONSIDER. Neither weight of authority nor universality of use can
purify or justify a linguistic corruption, and make the intrinsically
wrong in language right; and therefore such phrases as, "I consider
him an honest man," "Do you consider the dispute settled?" will ever
be bad English, however generally sanctioned. In his dedication of the
"Diversions of Purley" to the University of Cambridge, Horne Tooke
uses it wrongly when he says, "who always _considers_ acts of
voluntary justice toward himself as favors." The original
signification and only proper use of _consider_ are in phrases like
these: "If you consider the matter carefully;" "Consider the lilies of
the field."

CONDUCT. It seems to us that it were as allowable to say of a man, "He
carries well," as "He conducts well." We say of a gun that it carries
well, and we might say of a pipe that it conducts well. The gun and
pipe are passive instruments, not living organisms, and thence the
verbs are used properly in the neuter form. Perhaps, strictly
speaking, even here _its charge_ and _water_ are understood.

CONTEMPLATE. "Do you contemplate g