326 APPENDIX BY THE 



English reading, than with the reality. The foliage of 

 the holly of this continent is less glossy, and the berries 

 are less highly colored than those of the Eurooean tree, 



NOTE HH. 



To WILT, page 249. 



The verb to "wilt" thus noticed by Mr. Knapp, as an 

 English provincialism, is very generally used in America, 

 and perhaps deserves a word of defence more than most 

 terms of the kind preserved among us. It would seem 

 to have a meaning of its own, scarcely expressed by 

 any other synonym ; it signifies neither to " wither," to 

 " blight," to " die," nor to " decay." If we understand the 

 word rightly, it means something of debility and droop- 

 ing, akin to faintness in animal life, and implying the 

 capability of restoration. There is thus a shade of dis- 

 tinction in the word, which at times may approach -to 

 poetical delicacy, and which redeems it from a place with 

 others of the same class. 



To " hawl," or " haul," is also placed among the provin- 

 cialisms of his neighborhood by Mr. Knapp, p. 52 ; but 

 this, assuredly, is a good English word. Johnson gives the 

 derivation from the French hater, and the Dutch halen, 

 to draw. It is a very common word among us, and, with 

 Johnson for our authority, we need not give it up. 



Let it not be supposed from the previous remarks, that 

 as a general thing, the writer is in favor of keeping up the 

 provincialisms of our language ; far from this, it appears 

 to us that as the English tongue spreads wider and wider 

 over the earth, it becomes a more imperative duty among 

 those who use it, to preserve their common speech in all 

 its purity. 



