28 On Americanisms. 



of Genesis, he says, "The unnatural brethren who sold their 

 brother into captivity are now about to be captivated themselves, 

 and the binder himself, is bound in his turn." 



Cite**. This word is noticed by Johnson in the sense of " a 

 city woman, " but as peculiar to Dryden. During the stormy pe- 

 riod of the French Revolution however, the British Critic, a gov- 

 ernment Journal, charged the Americans with introducing this 

 new-fangled word into the English language. They were said to 

 have coined it The sole authority for this charge is the notorious 

 Peter Porcupine, and he puts the authorship of the term on some 

 violent partisans. All this might have passed in 1796, when men's 

 passions were at the height of irritation, but what shall we think 

 of a literary man, repeating the charge some twenty years or more 

 thereafter ? In the review of Inchiquin's Letters in the Quarterly, 

 (vol. 10, p. 500,) it is deliberately stated that the Americans hesi- 

 tated between citizeness and citess as the translation of citoyennes. 



Considerable. Dr. Witherspoon animadverts on the manner on 

 which this is used, " He is considerable of a Lawyer." It would 

 seem, however, from the following remark, to have been formerly 

 used in a similar way in England. 



Speaking of a story of Ligon in a notice of" Southey's Chron- 

 ological History of the West Indies," the Quarterly Review, (vol. 

 38, p. 229,) remarks, " The story is what our old writers would 

 have called considerable." 



Creek. I mention this word only, to say that we are probably 

 inveterate in diverting it from its old English sense—" a part of 

 the sea which runs into the land." 



Thus Milton, (Book 7, line 399,) 



We certainly in legislative and other public proceedings, as well 

 as in common language, mean by it a stream smaller than a river. 

 Some of the quotations by Johnson under the word, would seem to 

 permit tbe present application. 



Fall. Autumn. This is certainly not an Americanism, although 

 so charged on us. (Pickering, p. 91.) 



Johnson quotes the following lines from Dryden, 



Or how lot fall he raised the weekly bills. 



It is remarkable, however, that this is mentioned in one of the 

 earliest accusations brought against this country for coining new 



