the liberty of the said city, "either hand-habend, back-berand, or confessand any commodity of the value of thirteen pence halfpenny," he was, when duly condemned, after the space of three market-days, to be taken to the gibbet. It is little wonder that but one alternative was given the person to whom Halifax was recommended as a place of resort.
      But there is no end to the illustrations of our Yankee vernacular that may be drawn from old English. In most instances one needs go no farther than to the time of the settlement of the Colonies, to find these "Americanisms" in current English. Some of them will be found in good use to-day on either side of the water, only their use happens to be restricted to narrow limits; others continue to hold in their adopted country by prescriptive right a rank which they have relinquished at home. The wonder is, that those persons who make up collections of words and phrases peculiar to this country do not more readily discover what sort of material they are putting in. But then, there is to be considered the remark of Mr. Skeat, that his countrymen regard the language of Chaucer and of Langland as more difficult than Chinese; and the fact that we, too, generally share in that opinion. What has been attempted in this paper is to show the origin of our New-England dialect, and to prove that all talk about an American language, as distinct from English, is without the shadow of reason in history or in common-sense.