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-words. It is contained in No. 96 of the Mirror, a periodical paper, 

 published at Edinburgh in 1780, and to which Henry Mackenzie, 

 Prof. Richardson, and a number of other Scotch literati, contribut- 

 ed. The article in question was written by Professor Richardson. 



"A grave looking man (says he) who sat near me one day at 

 dinner, said a good deal about the fall, and of events that should 

 have happened before and after the fall. As he spoke also about 

 Providence and Sa7em and Ebenezer, and as great deference wad 

 shown to every thing he said, and being as I told you, a grave look- 

 ing man in a black coat, I was not sure but he might be some learn- 

 ed theologian, and imagined he was speaking about Oriental Anti- 

 quities and the fall of Adam. But I was soon undeceived. The 

 gentleman had lived for some time in Virginia. By Providence 

 he meant the town of that name in Rhode Island, and by the fall he 

 meant not the fall of our first parents, for concerning them he had 

 not the least idea, but as I suppose, the fall of the leaf, for (he 

 adds) the word is used, it seems, in the American Dialect for 



Grade. A friend has pointed out to me the use of this word (in 

 the manner charged by English critics as an Americanism,) in one 

 of the Novels of Sir Walter Scott. It occurs in a dialogue be- 

 tween Lord Menteith and Captain Dalgetty. (Legend of Mon- 

 trose, Chap. II.) The latter observes, " Why truly, an Irish Ca- 

 valier, being major of our regiment, and I having hard words with 

 him the night before, respecting the worth and precedence of our 

 several nations, it pleased him the next day to deliver his orders to 

 me, with the point of his battoon advanced and held aloof, instead 

 of declining and trailing the same, as is the fashion from a cour- 

 teous commanding officer towards his equal in rank, though it may 

 be his inferior in military grade." 



To Guess. There is no word, for which New-Englandmen are 

 more teased than this. Almost every English traveller notices it 

 as an Americanism. Yet it is certainly more in the manner, in 

 which it is applied — than because the word is not used. — Mr, 

 Pickering quotes several examples in late works (p. 101.) Even 



