4040688

R. 2, 1785.5

K

Entered according to Act of Congress, in the year 1851, by

JOHN BARTLETT,

in the Clerk's Office of the District Court of the District of Massachusetts.

PREFACE.

THE Editor has an indistinct recollection of a sheet of foolscap paper, on one side of which was written, perhaps a year and a half ago, a list of twenty or thirty college phrases, followed by the euphonious titles of "Yale Coll.," "Harvard Coll." Next he calls to mind two blue-covered books, turned from their original use, as receptacles of Latin and Greek exercises, containing explanations of these and many other phrases. His friends heard that he was hunting up odd words and queer customs, and dubbed him "Antiquarian," but in a kindly manner, spared his feelings, and did not put the vinegar "old" before it.

Two and one half quires of paper were in time covered with a strange medley, an olla-podrida of student peculiarities. Thus did he amuse himself in his leisure hours, something like one who, as Dryden says, "is for raking in Chaucer for antiquated words." By and by he heard a wish here and a wish there, whether real or otherwise he does not know, which said something about "type," "press," and used other cabalistic words, such as "copy," "devil," etc. Then there was a gathering of papers, a transcribing of passages from