ng him waiting and never giving battle. His name
has given us the word _Fabian_, to describe this kind of tactics.

The name by which people often describe an unscrupulous politician now
is _Machiavellian_, an adjective made from the name of a great writer
on the government of states. At the time of the Renaissance in Italy,
Machiavelli, in his famous book called "The Prince," took it for
granted that every ruler would do anything, good or bad, to arrive at
the results he desired.

Another common word taken at first from politics, but now used in a
general sense, is _boycott_. To boycott a person means to be
determined to ignore or take no notice of him. A child may be
"boycotted" by disagreeable companions at school. Another expression
for the same disagreeable method is to "send to Coventry."

But the political boycotting from which the word passed into general
use took place in Ireland, when any one with whose politics the Irish
did not agree was treated in this way. The first victim of this kind
of treatment was Captain Boycott of County Mayo in 1880. So useful has
this word been found that both the French and Germans have borrowed
it. The French have now the word _boycotter_, and the Germans
_boycottieren_.

Another Irish name which has given us a common word is Burke.
Sometimes in a discussion one person will tell another that he
_burkes_ the question. This means that he is avoiding the real subject
of debate. Or a rumour may be _burked_, or "hushed up." In this way
the subject is, as it were, smothered. And it was from this meaning
that the name came to be used as a general word. William Burke was an
Irish labourer who was executed in 1829, when he was found guilty of
having murdered several people. His habit had been to smother them, so
that their bodies did not show how they had died, and sell their
bodies to a doctor for dissection. From this dreadful origin we have
the new use of this fine old Irish name.

People who love books are often very indignant when the editors of a
new edition of an old book think it proper to leave out certain
passages which they think are indecent or unsuitable for people to
read. This is called "expurgating" the book; but people who disapprove
often call it to _bowdlerize_. This word comes from the name of Dr.
Thomas Bowdler, who in 1818 published an edition of Shakespeare's
works in which, as he said, "those words and expressions are omitted
which cannot with propriety be r