NOW, AT PRESENT, THIS INSTANT. WHILE metaphyficians expand their fubtleties into imperceptibility upon this fatal monofyllable, one would hope that conversation might go on without dispute concerning what flies away like the witches in Macbeth, who, while we contend about the nature of their existence, make themselves air, ́into which they vanish. So, alas! does NOW; the present moment paffing away even before the word is written that explains it. We may tell foreigners, however, that 'tis ufual in our language, when calling in a hurry, to cry NOW, NOW, as the quickeft expreffion, I fuppofe, for urging another to immediate hafte. you" is a common phrafe-He was here THIS INSTANT, means, 'tis not an inftant scarcely fince he was here: but it does certainly 'AT PRESENT we cannot come to VOL. II. F tainly mean time paft; for one fays to a person who looking round miffes the individual fought for-Why, fhe is here Now, fee her? cannot you I thought we were to begin upon the fubject Now, fays a man impatient of decifion. We will begin THIS INSTANT, replies his cooler friend (meaning a future time, though near); AT PRESENT it would not be fo proper. These things are difficult to foreigners; nor can I guess why both time paft, and time to come, should both be hourly and commonly expreft by THIS INSTANT, which at first view appears improper enough. In a converfation when it was proposed to write an impromptu upon NOW, this pretty quatrain was produced by Della Crufea, who had been afferting that all past actions were nihilities, and the immediate moment was the whole of human exiftence. One One endless Now ftands o'er th' eventful stream A partial friend in company replied: 'Tis yours the PRESENT MOMENT to redeem, We have Now I think pretty well difpatched this fynonymy. NOXIOUS, MISCHIEVOUS, PERNICIOUS, HURTFUL, BANEFUL, words of contemp ARE all, except one, words of tuous abhorrence: yet may a foreigner misapply them, if not informed that we call a lion a deftructive animal, and the Apulian spider a NOXIOUS infect; whilst all agree that a MISCHIEVOUS boy is at any rate a very offenfive and tormenting inmate to a grave gentleman or elegant lady: but if he should once take a fancy to put laurel leaves in their tea-pot, such a trick might prove PERNICIOUS to the whole family, as that plant is in its nature HURTFUL, and a diftillation from it not only poisonous, but actually BANEFUL; the man who fwallows laurel water not living long enough, 'tis faid, even to fet down the cup; fo fudden and fo dreadful are its effects. Such reflections fhould make us fhun people who are faid to be only MISCHIEVOUS, as they are likely enough to end in being moft PERNICIOUS companions. NOYSOME, NOYSOME, OFFENSIVE, DISGUSTING. THE first of these unpleafing adjectives is of late commonly written NOISOME, becaufe derived from the Italian nojofo: as it takes root immediately however from our own English verb to ANNOY, it has a claim to the y-Grec. 'Tis not the more fynonymous with noxious or deftructive, because we find it fometimes attributed to things which are dangerous in their nature: for although the smallpox or peftilence are juftly called NOISOME diseases, it is not because they kill, but because they OFFEND us, that they are fo termed. A bad fmell can scarce attack life, but it has a juft pretenfion to all the epithets upon the list: fo has indecent talk, which is exceedingly OFFENSIVE and DISGUSTING, and drives delicate people from a company as furely as |