Inde rosam mensis hospes suspendit amicis
Convivii et sub ea dicta tacenda sciat.

_Potter's Ant. Greece_.

"_Cant_." This word, which is now generally applied to fanatical preachers,
and hypocritical apprentices in religion, derives its name from two Scotch
Presbyterian ministers, in the reign of Charles II. They were father and
son, both called Andrew Cant; and Whitelocke in his "Memoirs," p. 511,
after narrating the defeat at Worcester, in 1651, says, "Divers Scotch
ministers were permitted to meet at Edinburgh, to keep a day of
humiliation, as they pretended, for their too much compliance with the
King," and in the same month when Lord Argyll had called a parliament, Mr.
Andrew Cant, a minister, said in his pulpit, that "God was bound to hold
this parliament, for that all other parliaments was called by man, but
this was brought about by his own hand."

"_An't please the Pigs_." In this phrase there is not only a peculiarity
of dialect, but the corruption of a word, and a change of one thing for
another. In the first place, _an_, in the midland counties, is used for if;
and pigs is evidently a corruption of Pyx, the sacred vessel containing
the host in Roman Catholic countries. In the last place, the vessel is
substituted for the power itself, by an easy metonymy in the same manner
as when we talk of "the sense of the house," we do not mean to ascribe
intelligence to a material building; but to the persons in it assembled
for a deliberate purpose; the expression therefore signifies no more than
"_Deo volente_," or God willing.

"_Bumper_." In many parts of England any thing large is called a bumper.
Hence a bumping lass is a large girl of her age, and a bumpkin is a