“It would be bad grammar,” said Cobbett, “to say of the House of Commons, ’It is a sink of iniquity, and they are a set of rascally swindlers.’” Of course, the bad grammar is almost immaterial.  The expression is either a gross libel or a lamentable fact.  “If a man,” said Sydney Smith, “were to kill the minister and churchwardens of his parish nobody would accuse him of want of taste.  The Scythians always ate their grandfathers; they behaved very respectfully to them for a long time, but as soon as their grandfathers became old and troublesome, and began to tell long stories, they immediately ate them; nothing could be more improper and even disrespectful than dining off such near and venerable relations, yet we could not with any propriety accuse them of bad taste.”  This is very humorous.  To say that it is improper or disrespectful is as absurd as to say that it is bad taste.  It is properly described as cruel, revolting, and abominable.

Not being at all a French scholar, and coming suddenly in view of Mont Blanc, I ventured to say to my guide, “C’est tres joli.” “Non, Monsieur,” said he, “ce n’est pas joli, mais c’est curieux a voir.”  I think we were both of us rather out of it that time.

I remember an old lady of my acquaintance pointing to her new chintz of peonies and sunflowers, and asking me if I did not think it was very “chaste.”  I should like to have said, “Oh, yes, very, quite rococo,” but I daren’t.

The wife of a clergyman, writing to the papers about the “Penge Mystery,” said that certain of the parties (whom most right-minded people thought had committed most atrocious crimes, if not actual murder) had been guilty of a breach of “les convenances de societe.”  This is almost equal to De Quincey’s friend, who committed a murder, which at the time he thought little about.  Keble said to Froude, “Froude, you said you thought Law’s Serious Call was a clever book; it seemed to me as if you had said the Day of Judgment will be a pretty sight.”

I ought here to mention the use, or rather misuse, of words which are often called “slang,” such as “awfully jolly,” “fearfully tedious,” “horribly dull,” or the expression “quite alarming,” which young ladies, I think, have now happily forgotten, and the equally silly use of the word “howling” by young men.  Such expressions mean absolutely nothing, and are destructive of intelligent conversation.  A man was being tried for a serious assault, and had used a violent and coarse expression towards the prosecutor.  “You must be careful not to be misled by the bad language reported to have been used by the prisoner,” said the judge.  “You will find from the evidence that he has applied the same expression to his best friend, to a glass of beer, to his grandmother, his boots, and his own eyes.”

4. Criticism should be strong.