woman, that Dr. Johnson's Dictionary was to the Bengali Baboo, he unquestionably spoke in terms of figurative exaggeration; nevertheless a core of truth lies hidden in his remark. It is by the Baboo's words you know the Baboo. The true Baboo is full of words and phrases—full of inappropriate words and phrases lying about like dead men on a battle-field, in heaps, to be carted away promiscuously, without reference to kith or kin. You may turn on a Baboo at any moment and be quite sure that words, and phrases, and maxims, and proverbs will come gurgling forth, without reference to the subject or to the occasion, to what has gone before, or to what will come after. Perhaps it was with reference to this independence, buoyancy, and extravagance of language that Lord Lytton declared the Bengali to be "the Irishman of India."
You know, dear Vanity, I whispered to you before that the poor Baboo often suffers from a slight aberration of speech which prevents his articulating the truth—a kind of moral lisp. Lord Lytton could not have been alluding to this; for it was only yesterday that
