ublished letter to the zeal and care of
Professor Dugald Stewart, in his excellent "Dissertations."

[44] It is still a Chancery word. An answer in Chancery, &c., is
referred for _impertinence_, reported _impertinent_--and the
_impertinence_ ordered to be struck out, meaning only what is
immaterial or superfluous, tending to unnecessary expense. I am
indebted for this explanation to my friend, Mr. Merivale; and to
another learned friend, formerly in that court, who describes its
meaning as "an excess of words or matter in the pleadings," and who
has received many an official fee for "expunging impertinence,"
leaving, however, he acknowledges, a sufficient quantity to make the
lawyers ashamed of their verbosity.

[45] Sen. Epist. 21.

[46] Baillet gives the dates and plans of these grammars. The
_cabalistic_ was published in Bruxelles, 1642, in 12mo. The
_audacious_ was in folio, printed at Frankfort, 1654.--Jugemens des
Savans. Tome ii. 3me partie.

POLITICAL NICKNAMES.

Political calumny is said to have been reduced into an art, like that of
logic, by the Jesuits. This itself may be a political calumny! A
powerful body, who themselves had practised the artifices of
calumniators, may, in their turn, often have been calumniated. The
passage in question was drawn out of one of the classical authors used
in their colleges. Busembaum, a German Jesuit, had composed, in
duodecimo, a "Medulla Theologiae moralis," where, among other casuistical
propositions, there was found lurking in this old Jesuit's "marrow" one
which favoured regicide and assassination! Fifty editions of the book
had passed unnoticed; till a new one appearing at the critical moment of
Damien's attempt, the duodecimo of the old scholastic Jesuit, which had
now been amplified by its commentators into two folios, was considered
not merely ridiculous, but dangerous. It was burnt at Toulouse, in
1757, by order of the parliament, and condemned at Paris. An Italian
Jesuit published an "apology" for this theory of assassination, and the
same flames devoured it! Whether Busembaum deserved the honour bestowed
on his ingenuity, the reader may judge by the passage itself.

"Whoever would ruin a person, or a government, must begin this operation
by spreading calumnies, to defame the person or the government; for
unquestionably the calumniator will always find a great number of
persons inclined to b