famous. Lightning is an old cant term for liquor. George Parker's Dictionary of 1789 defines it as a quartern of gin. The guests now being met, The first thing that was done That all might smack his mun. Bets tipt each cull and frow, To have it chiistened Joe. Life's Paint (1789). Jerusalem Artichoke. A curious example of folk-etymology is that which has turned the Italian Girasole Artieiocco into "Jerusalem artichoke." The Italian name means the sunflower artichoke, the vegetable (Helianthus tuberosus) being a perennial of the same family as the common sunflower (Helianthus annuus), which it resembles in stem, leaves, and flowers. A further extension of the name-error turns the soup made from the artichoke tubers into " Palestine Soup." Jesse, To give him, an Americanism, meaning to abuse a man, to thrash him severely, sometimes intensified as "particular Jesse" or "d d particular Jesse." Charles Eliot Norton reminds us that "Give 'em Jessie" was a party war-cry current in the Presidential campaign of 1856. "Fremont, the Republican candidate, had fifteen years before made a runaway match with Jessie, daughter of Thomas H. Benton, and the popular favor with which runaway matches are apt to be regarded was made much of in this case, the lady's name being freely used in song and story by her husband's political supporters." But the phrase is much older than 1856, and the war-cry was merely a punning allusion. One derivation takes us back to the days of falconry. The/*$\r was a thong by which the bird was attached to the wrist, and when it retrieved badly it appears to have been the custom to punish it by the application of the thong. But Mr. Leland's suggestion is more probable, that the phrase is derived from the allusion in the Bible to Jesse's valor and the aid which he rendered, a text continually repeated among the Puritans. Jesuitical compositions, or Equivoques, an ingenious sort of literary trifling, wherein the art consists in so writing and arranging the lines that two opposite meanings may be elicited according as they are read downward or across. An early and excellent specimen was once well known in New England as "The Jesuit's Creed," and is sometimes attributed to Dean Swift. But Collet, in his "Relics of Literature," credits it to the Weekly Pecquet of Advice from Rome, No. 23, May 6, 1679. At that date Swift was in his cradle. Here it is, in the original Latin and in the PacquePs translation: Pro fide teneo sana Quae docet Anglican*, Affirmat quae Romana Videntur mini vana. Suprcmus quando rex est Turn plebs est fortunata, Erraticus turn grex est Cum caput fiat papa. Altari cum ornatur (Jommunio fit inanis, Populus turn beatur Cum mensa vina panis. Asim nomen meruit Hunc niorem qui non capit, Missam qui deseruit Catholicus est et sapit. I hold for sound faith What England's church allows. What Rome's faith saith My conscience disavows. Where the king's head The flock can take no shame The flock's misled Who hold the Pope supreme. Where the altar's dressed The worship's scarce divine The people's blessed, Whose table's bread and wine. He's but an ass Who their communion flies Who shuns the mass It catholic and wise. A good example, in prose, of the same kind of drollery is afforded by the following letter, said to have been written by Cardinal Richelieu to the French ambassador in Rome, but probably an invention of a later day: §1Rf—Mons. Compigne. a Savoyard by birth, a Friar of the order of Saint Benedict, is the man who will present to you as his passport to your protection, this letter. He is one of the most discreet, the wisest and the least meddling persons that I have ever known or have had the pleasure to converse with. He has long earnestly solicited me to write to you in his favor, and to give him a suitable character, together with a letter of credence; which I have accordingly granted to his real merit, rather, I must say, than to his importunity; for, believe me, Sir, his modesty is only exceeded by his worth. I should be sorry that you should be wanting in serving him on account of being misinformed of his real character; I should be afflicted if you were, as some other gentlemen have been, misled on that score, who now esteem him, and those among the best of my friends; wherefore, and from no other motive, I think it my duty to advertise you that you are most particularly desired to have especial attention to all he does, to show him all the respect imaginable, nor venture to say anything before him, that may either offend or displease him in any sort; for I may truly say, there is no man I love so much as M. Compigne, none whom 1 should more regret to see neglected, as no one can be more worthy to be received and trusted in decent society. Base, therefore, would it be to injure him. And I well know, that as soon as you are made sensible of his virtues and shall become acquainted with him you will love him as I do; and then you will thank me for this my advice. The assurance I entertain of your Courtesy obliges me to desist from urging this matter to you further, or saying anything more on this subject. Believe me, Sir, etc. Richelieu. The '* Lansdowne MSS." yield the following,—numbered 852 in that collection,—which might have been composed by some Vicar of Bray in the time of the Georges: I love with all my heart The Tory party here The next on our list is said to have been circulated among the United Irishmen previous to the rebellion of 1798: I fain would banish far from hence The pomp of courts and pride of kings The Rights of Man and Common Sense The following was the way an aristocrat of the old regime denounced the French Revolution while seemingly upholding it: A la nouvelle loi Je veux etre fidele Je renonce dans 1'ame Au regime ancien; Comme Ipreuve de ma foi Je crois la loi nouvelle {e crois celle qu'on blame Su'il confonde a jamais The newly-made law 'Tis my wish to esteem The American Revolution produced Hark! hark! the trumpet sounds, a very good example: The din of war's alarms, During the civil war, at the time of McClellan's nomination for the Presidency, a number of administration papers published the following ingenious burlesque on the Democratic platform, which they held to be an attempt to straddle every question, and a bid for the votes of all parties: Fead crosswise, it gives a satirical presentation of the sentiments of the Democratic platform, but when split in the middle the left-hand column represents the extreme "Copperhead" and the right-hand the extreme "Abolitionist" sentiment. Hitherto we have confined ourselves to political and religious squibs. Here are a couple of peaceful, secular compositions, the first resolving itself into a satire on woman and marriage, and the second, read in any manner you choose, persistently reiterating the lover's praise of his mistress: Matrimony, The man must lead a happy life Who's free from matrimonial chains, Charles Wesley is credited with the following " Musical Creed:" Handel d'ye see's A downright arrant block The man for me Who can write well But old Handel George is for air lleyond compare To Handel's name Give then the fame A less literary, but still ingenious Is John Sebastian Kach, form of equivocation is illustrated by the story of the Milwaukee merchant who, during the civil war, drew on the wall of his store a negro's head, and beneath the legend,— Dis Union Foreber. Another stock story relates that during the Presidential campaign of 1S72 a non-committal editor sought to propitiate all parties by placing at the head of his editorial column the ticket "Gr and n," allowing his subscribers a choice of interpretation between Grant and Wilson and Greeley and Brown. (It is added that an ardent Republican subscriber advised him to "Go to the ant, thou sluggard !") Lippincotfs Magazine called attention to the fact that this editor was a probably unconscious plagiarist from the French army officer who at a mess-meeting gave the toast,— "Gentlemen, I drink to a thing which—an object that Bah! I will out with it at once. It begins with an R and ends with an E." "Capital!" whispered a young lieutenant of Bordeaux promotion. "He proposes the RSpublique, without offending the old fogies by saying the word." "Nonsense! He means the Radicate" replied another. "Upon my word," said a third, as he lifted his glass, "our friend must mean la Royauti" "I see !" cried a one-legged veteran of Froschweiler: "we drink to !a Revane he." So the whole party drank the toast heartily, each interpreting it to his liking. Jew that Shakespeare drew. An anecdote which persistently recurs. with much embroidery of detail added bv each successive reporter, made its first appearance, so far as known, in J. T Kirkman s *' Life of Macklin" (1700), Vol. i. p. 264. Shylock, it will be remembered, had been degraded to a comic Z ////;/ 49 character on the English stage, but Macklin restored the text and played Shylock as a serious part. The biographer continues,— In the dumb action of the trial scene he was amazingly descriptive, and through the whole displayed such unequal merit as justly entitled him to that very comprehensive, though concise, compliment paid to him by Mr. Pope, who sat in the stage-box on the third night of the reproduction, and who emphatically exclaimed,— This is the Jew The book is ill written, as may be seen from the above, and no authorities are cited. The anonymous author of a somewhat better biography, "Memoirs of Macklin" (1804), does not mention the story of the couplet, which is presumptive evidence that it was then discredited. In 1812 it reappears in the 44 Biographia Dramatica," vol. i. p. 469, in this cautious form: On the 14th of February, 1741, Macklin established his fame as an actor in the character of Shylock in the " Merchant of Venice." Macklin's performance of this character so forcibly struck a gentleman in the pit that he, as it were involuntarily, exclaimed,— This is the Jew That Shakespeare drew! It has been said that this gentleman was Mr. Pope, and that he meant his panegyric on Macklin as a satire against Lord Lansdowne. In 1853, the anecdote, trailing clouds of glory, comes out in this fashion: On the third night of representation all eyes were directed to the stage-box, where sat a little deformed man; and whilst others watched his gestures, as if to learn his opinion of the performers, he was gazing intently upon Shylock, and as the actor panted, in broken accents of rage, and sorrow, and avarice, " Go, Tubal, fee me an officer; bespeak him a fortnight before. I will have the heart of him, if he forfeit?; for were he out of Venice, I can make what merchandise I will. Go, Tubal, and meet me at our synagogue; go, good Tubal; at our synagogue, Tubal," the little man was seen to rise, and, leaning from the box as Macklin passed it, he whispered,— This is the Jew That Shakespeare drew. The speaker was Alexander Pope, and, in that age, from his judgment in criticism there was no appeal.—Irish Quarterly Review (December, 1853). Now, it is doubtful whether Pope was in London at all when Macklin brought out Shylock. That he was in Bath on February 4, 1741, is evidenced by a letter of that date to Warburton. But, even if he had returned to London, it is unlikely that he was at the theatre (certainly he was not in the pit). His health had been ailing since 1739, when he described himself as "sleepy and stupid enough" in the evenings. "My eyes fail, and the hours when most people indulge in company, I am tired, and find the labor of the past day sufficient to weigh me down, so I hide myself in bed, as a bird in the nest, much about the same time, and rise and chirp in the morning." Jew's eye, Worth a. This expression is supposed to have arisen out of the practice of torturing the Jews to exact money. Drawing teeth or plucking out an eye was frequently resorted to if the demand was not complied with. The threatened member could be ransomed only by paying the sum exacted. King John, having required a rich Jew of Bristol to pay him ten thousand marks, when the demand was resisted ordered that one of the Jew's teeth should be tugged out every day till the money was forthcoming. The sufferer endured seven days before he would give in, which when he did, John jestingly observed, "A Jew's eye may be a quick revenue, but Jews' teeth give the richer harvest." According to serious philology, however, Jew's eye is simply a corruption of the Italian gioLi (a "jewel**). Shakespeare puns upon the word when he makes Launcelot say,— There will come a Christian by Merchant of Venice, Act ii., Sc. 5. |