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or that the word did not exist in English till the middle of last century. The French sometimes complain that the fashion of suicide was borrowed from England. It would seem at all events probable that the word was so borrowed. Let me urge here the advantage of a complete collection, or one as nearly complete as the industry of the collectors would allow, of all the notices in our literature, which mark, and would serve as dates for, the first incoming of new words into the language. These notices are of the most various kinds. Sometimes they are protests and remonstrances, as that just quoted, against a new word's introduction; sometimes they are gratulations at the same; while many hold themselves neuter as to approval or disapproval, and merely state, or allow us to gather, the fact of a word's recent appearance. There are not a few of these notices in Richardson's _Dictionary_: thus one from Lord Bacon under 'essay'; from Swift under 'banter'; from Sir Thomas Elyot under 'mansuetude'; from Lord Chesterfield under 'flirtation'; from Davies and Marlowe's _Epigrams_ under 'gull'; from Roger North under 'sham' (Appendix); the third quotation from Dryden under 'mob'; one from the same under 'philanthropy', and again under 'witticism', in which he claims the authorship of the word; that from Evelyn under 'miss'; and from Milton under 'demagogue'. There are also notices of the same kind in _Todd's Johnson_. The work, however, is one which no single scholar could hope to accomplish, which could only be accomplished by many lovers of their native tongue throwing into a common stock the results of their several studies. The sources from which these illustrative passages might be gathered cannot beforehand be enumerated, inasmuch as it is difficult to say in what unexpected quarter they would not sometimes be found, although some of these sources are obvious enough. As a very slight sample of what might be done in this way by the joint contributions of many, let me throw together references to a few passages of the kind which I do not think have found their way into any of our dictionaries. Thus add to that which Richardson has quoted on 'banter', another from _The Tatler_, No. 230. On 'plunder' there are two inst
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