n over the session, opinions above or below
the gangway, and the like, so rife of late in St. Stephen's; even when a
member "rats" on seeing that the pumps cannot keep his party from
falling to leeward, he is but imitating the vermin that quit a
sinking-ship.

This predilection for sea idiom is assuredly proper in a maritime
people, especially as many of the phrases are at once graphic, terse,
and perspicuous. How could the whereabouts of an aching tooth be better
pointed out to an operative dentist than Jack's "'Tis the aftermost
grinder aloft, on the starboard quarter." The ship expressions preserve
many British and Anglo-Saxon words, with their quaint old preterites and
telling colloquialisms; and such may require explanation, as well for
the youthful aspirant as for the cocoa-nut-headed prelector in nautic
lore. It is indeed remarkable how largely that foundation of the English
language has been preserved by means of our sailors.

This phraseology has necessarily been added to from time to time, and
consequently bears the stamp of our successive ages of sea-life. In the
"ancient and fishlike" terms that brave Raleigh derived from his
predecessors, many epithets must have resulted from ardent recollections
of home and those at home, for in a ship we find--

Apeak, Cat's-paw, Driver, Hound, Rabbit, Stays,
Apron, Cot, Earings, Jewel, Ribband, Stirrup,
A-stay, Cradle, Eyes, Lacings, Saddle, Tiller,
Bonnet, Crib, Fox, Martingale, Sheaves, Truck,
Braces, Crow-foot, Garnet, Mouse, Sheets, Truss,
Bridle, Crow's nest, Goose-neck, Nettle, Sheepshank, Watch,
Cap, Crown, Goose-wing, Pins, Shoe, Whip,
Catharpins, Diamond, Horse, Puddings, Sister, Yard.
Cat-heads, Dog, Hose,

Most of the real sea-terms are pregnant with meaning; but those who
undertake to expound them ought to be tolerably versed in the topic.
Thus perhaps there was no great harm in Dr. Johnson's being utterly
ignorant of maritime language, but it was temerariously vain in that
sturdy lexicographer to assert that _belay_ is a sea-phrase for splicing
a rope; _main sheet_, for the largest sail in a ship; and _bight_, for
the circumference of a coil of rope; and we long had him on the hip
respecting the _purser_, a personage whom he--misled by Burser--a