130 LITERARY TASTES. [CHAP. IX. 



sionally I was as much puzzled as if I was reading Tarn o Shanter, 

 as, for example, &quot; out of kittel&quot; means &quot; out of order.&quot; The word 

 &quot; sick&quot; is used in New England in the same sense as it was in 

 the time of Shakspeare, or when the liturgy of the Church of 

 England was composed. The word &quot; ill,&quot; which in Great 

 Britain means &quot;not well,&quot; signifies in America &quot;very ill.&quot; 

 They often speak here of a &quot; lovely man,&quot; using the adjective in 

 a moral sense ; and say of a plain, shriveled old woman, that 

 she is &quot; a fine and lovely woman,&quot; meaning that her character 

 and disposition are amiable. &quot; Clever&quot; is applied to a good- 

 natured and good-hearted person who is without talent and 

 quickness. At first we had many a good laugh when we dis 

 covered that we had been at cross purposes, on comparing notes 

 as to our opinions of English and American friends. On one 

 occasion I admitted that Mrs. A. might be &quot; a fine and lovely 

 woman,&quot; but it could only be said of her by candlelight. 



In the literary circles here we meet with several writers who 

 are keeping up an active correspondence with distinguished men 

 in all parts of Europe, but especially with English authors. 



We are often amused to observe how much the conversation 

 turns on what is going on in London. One day I was asked 

 whether it were true that the committee for deciding on the 

 statues to be set up in the new House of Lords, had voted in 

 favor of Richardson, before they could make up their minds 

 whether they should honor Pope, Dryderi, Swift, and Fielding; 

 and whether Milton was at first black-balled, and how they could 

 possibly be disputing about the rival claims of Hume and Robert 

 son as historians, while a greater than either of them, Gibbon, 

 was left out of the question. They suggested that a tribunal of 

 literary Jews might soon be required to pronounce fairly on the 

 merits of Christian writers. &quot; Do your countrymen,&quot; said one 

 of my friends to me, &quot;mean to imitate the spirit of the king of 

 Bavaria, who excluded Luther from his Walhalla because he 

 was a Protestant, and instead of Shakspeare and Newton could 

 endure no representatives of British genius, save the orthodox 

 King Alfred and Roger Bacon ?&quot; I was curious, when I got 

 home, to learn how much of this gossip about things in the old 



