298 POPULAR BRITISH CONCHOLOGY. 



to define the object and its cliaracters ? If, with the Irish 

 schoolmaster mentioned in ' Household Words/ we had to 

 write a petition in favour of Nelly Rean, we should think it 

 much better at once to own that the poor woman killed a 

 goat, than to admit she had "deprived of existence a small 

 cornuted animal/^ In the case alluded to, perhaps a pur- 

 pose was served ; for as none of the Eelief Committee but 

 the clergyman knew what the word ^ cornuted^ meant, the 

 petitioner made good the celebrated definition of language, 

 as ' a means of concealing our ideas/ 



