s nor
punishments existed in the after-state, they proceeded to the erroneous
consequence that man perished with his own dust!

The plainest words, by accidental associations, may suggest the most
erroneous conceptions, and have been productive of the grossest errors.
In the famous Bangorian controversy, one of the writers excites a smile
by a complaint, arising from his views of the signification of a plain
word, whose meaning he thinks had been changed by the contending
parties. He says, "the word _country_, like a great many others, such as
_church_ and kingdom, is, by the Bishop of Bangor's leave, become to
signify a _collection of ideas_ very different from its _original
meaning_; with some it implies _party_, with others _private opinion_,
and with most _interest_, and perhaps, in time, may signify _some other
country_. When this good innocent word has been tossed backwards and
forwards a little longer, some new reformer of language may arise to
reduce it to its primitive signification--_the real interest of Great
Britain!_" The antagonist of this controversialist probably retorted on
him his own term of _the real interest_, which might be a very opposite
one, according to their notions! It has been said, with what truth I
know not, that it was by a mere confusion of words that Burke was
enabled to alarm the great Whig families, by showing them their fate in
that of the French _noblesse_; they were misled by the _similitude of
names_. The French _noblesse_ had as little resemblance to our nobility
as they have to the Mandarins of China. However it may be in this case,
certain it is that the same terms misapplied have often raised those
delusive notions termed false analogies. It was long imagined in this
country, that the _parliaments_ of France were somewhat akin to our own;
but these assemblies were very differently constituted, consisting only
of lawyers in courts of law. A misnomer confuses all argument. There is
a trick which consists in bestowing good names on bad things. Vices,
thus veiled, are introduced to us as virtues, according to an old poet,

As drunkenness, good-fellowship we call?

SIR THOMAS WIAT.

Or the reverse, when loyalty may be ridiculed, as

The right divine of kings--to govern wrong!

The most innocent recreations, such as the drama, dancing, dress, have
been anathematised by puritans, while philosophers have written
elaborate treatises in their defence--the enigma is solved