_levee en masse_, _noyades_, and the other verb active,
_septembriser_, &c. The barbarous term _demoralisation_ is said to have
been the invention of the horrid capuchin Chabot; and the remarkable
expression of _arriere pensee_ belonged exclusively in its birth to the
jesuitic astuteness of the Abbe Sieyes, that political actor, who, in
changing sides, never required prompting in his new part!

A new word, the result of much consideration with its author, or a term
which, though unknown to the language, conveys a collective assemblage
of ideas by a fortunate designation, is a precious contribution of
genius; new words should convey new ideas. Swift, living amidst a civil
war of pamphlets, when certain writers were regularly employed by one
party to draw up replies to the other, created a term not to be found in
our dictionaries, but which, by a single stroke, characterises these
hirelings; he called them _answer-jobbers_. We have not dropped the
fortunate expression from any want of its use, but of perception in our
lexicographers. The celebrated Marquis of Lansdowne introduced a useful
word, which has of late been warmly adopted in France as well as in
England--_to liberalise_; the noun has been drawn out of the verb--for
in the marquis's time that was only an abstract conception which is now
a sect; and to _liberalise_ was theoretically introduced before the
_liberals_ arose.[28] It is curious to observe that as an adjective it
had formerly in our language a very opposite meaning to its recent one.
It was synonymous with "libertine or licentious;" we have "a _liberal_
villain" and "a most profane and _liberal_ counsellor;" we find one
declaring "I have spoken _too liberally_." This is unlucky for the
_liberals_, who will not--

Give allowance to our _liberal_ jests
Upon their persons--

BEAUMONT AND FLETCHER.

Dr. Priestley employed a forcible, but not an elegant term, to mark the
general information which had begun in his day; this he frequently calls
"the _spread_ of knowledge." Burke attempted to brand with a new name
that set of pert, petulant, sophistical sciolists, whose philosophy the
French, since their revolutionary period, have distinguished as
_philosophism_, and the philosophers themselves as _philosophistes_. He
would have designated them as _literators_, but few exotic words will
circulate; new words must be the coinage of our own language to blend
with the vernacular idiom. Many new words