PREFACE. THE following collection of passages from old and modern writers, though the result of considerable labour and research, was originally undertaken rather as an amusement than with a view to publication. As however the work approached completion, it was thought that it possessed qualities of a sufficiently popular character to entitle it to the notice of the general reader. It is intended to exhibit some of the changes which the course of time has effected in the meaning of numerous words in common use, and to set forth such varieties by way of examples which speak for themselves, rather than by the use of lengthy and tedious explanations. The author has not attempted to point out the derivation of the words themselves, or to trace the stages of transformation through which they may have passed, but the object has been simply to bring together instances, arranged in the order of time, showing a whole or partial deviation from the original sense. Many words may doubtless have had from a remote period a second meaning which has survived the alternative signification, and the obsolete sense may have been of rare occurrence, but that has not been considered a sufficient reason for their exclusion. It is believed that the present book differs from any |