affinity and near familiarity with one another; secondly, these
sponsors, who being thus brought together, allow themselves one with the
other in familiar, and then in trivial and idle talk; thirdly, any who
allow themselves in this trivial and idle talk,--called in French
'commerage', from the fact that 'commere' has run through exactly the
same stages as its English equivalent.

It is plain that words which designate not things and persons only, but
these as they are contemplated more or less in an ethical light, words
which tinge with a moral sentiment what they designate, are peculiarly
exposed to change; are constantly liable to take a new colouring, or to
lose an old. The gauge and measure of praise or blame, honour or
dishonour, admiration or abhorrence, which they convey, is so purely a
mental and subjective one, that it is most difficult to take accurate
note of its rise or of its fall, while yet there are causes continually
at work leading it to the one or the other. There are words not a few,
but ethical words above all, which have so imperceptibly drifted away
from their former moorings, that although their position is now very
different from that which they once occupied, scarcely one in a hundred
of casual readers, whose attention has not been specially called to the
subject, will have observed that they have moved at all. Here too we
observe some words conveying less of praise or blame than once, and
some more; while some have wholly shifted from the one to the other.
Some were at one time words of slight, almost of offence, which have
altogether ceased to be so now. Still these are rare by comparison with
those which once were harmless, but now are harmless no more; which
once, it may be, were terms of honour, but which now imply a slight or
even a scorn. It is only too easy to perceive why these should exceed
those in number.

{Sidenote: '_Imp_', '_Brat_'}

Let us take an example or two. If any were to speak now of royal
children as "royal _imps_", it would sound, and with our present use of
the word would be, impertinent and unbecoming enough; and yet 'imp' was
once a name of dignity and honour, and not of slight or of undue
familiarity. Thus Spenser addresses the Muses in this language,

"Ye sacred _imps_ that on Parnasso dwell";

and 'imp' was especially used of the scions of royal or illustrious
houses. More than one epitaph, still existing, of our ancient nobility
might be quoted, beginni