As the chemist concluded his reading the traveller remarked to the somewhat weary listeners, “You now see the vast amount of study and care required to use gas with economy and safety.  I could not have argued the cause of a new, clean, gasless and vaporless light like electricity any better myself.”

“It will be found,” responded the chemist, “that there are more troubles and dangers connected with the electric light—­besides the larger expense—­than are thought of now.”

“That is so!” ejaculated the young fellow.

“At any rate,” said the old gentleman, “gas stock won’t go lower for twenty years than it has been this winter.”

“You are all wedded to your idols,” was the final protest of the traveller.

“I wish I was,” murmured the young fellow, with a side-glance at his fair neighbor, who immediately removed to another part of the room.

GEORGE J. VARNEY.

THE “_???? ??G?????_ IN SHAKESPEARE.

When we examine the vocabulary of Shakespeare, what first strikes us is its copiousness.  His characters are countless, and each one speaks his own dialect.  His little fishes never talk like whales, nor do his whales talk like little fishes.  Those curious in such matters have detected in his works quotations from seven foreign tongues, and those from Latin alone amount to one hundred and thirty-two.

Our first impression, that the Shakespearian variety of words is multitudinous, is confirmed by statistics.  Mrs. Cowden Clarke has counted those words one by one, and ascertained their sum to be not less than fifteen thousand.  The total vocabulary of Milton’s poetical remains is no more than eight thousand, and that of Homer, including the Hymns as well as both Iliad and Odyssey, is about nine thousand.  In the English Bible the different words are reckoned by Mr. G.P.  Marsh in his lectures on the English language at rather fewer than six thousand.  Those in the Greek Testament I have learned by actual count to be not far from five thousand five hundred.

Some German writers on Greek grammar maintain that they could teach Plato and Demosthenes useful lessons concerning Greek moods and tenses, even as the ancient Athenians, according to the fable of Phaedrus, contended that they understood squealing better than a pig.  However this may be, any one of us to-day, thanks to the Concordance of Mrs. Clarke and the Lexicon of Alexander Schmidt, may know much in regard to Shakespeare’s use of language which Shakespeare himself cannot have known.  One particular as to which he must have been ignorant, while we may have knowledge, is concerning his employment of terms denominated apa? ?e?? mue?a.

The phrase apa? ?e?? mue?a—­literally, once spoken—­may be traced back, I think, to the Alexandrian grammarians, centuries before our era, who invented it to describe those words which they observed to occur once, and only once, in any author or literature.  It is so convenient an expression for statistical commentators on the Bible, and on the classics as well, that they will not willingly let it die.