mouth, doth irritate the fibres of the hypogastric muscle to
open the mouth to discharge by expiration the unfortunate gust
of air infected with the steams of blood, as aforesaid."

The feminine gender, we are further told, is attributed to a ship,
"because a ship carries burdens, and therefore resembles a pregnant
woman."

But as the faith of 1850 in _The British Apollo_, with its two thousand
answers, may not be equal to the faith of 1740, what dependence are we
to place in the origin it attributes to two very common words, a _bull_,
and a _dun_?--

"Why, when people speak improperly, is it termed a bull?--It
became a proverb from the repeated blunders of one _Obadiah
Bull_, a lawyer of London, who lived in the reign of King Henry
VII."

Now for the second,--

"Pray tell me whence you can derive the original of the word
_dun_? Some falsely think it comes from the French, where
_donnez_ signifies _give me_, implying a demand of something
due; but the true original of this expression owes its birth to
one _Joe Dun_, a famous bailiff of the town of Lincoln, so
extremely active, and so dexterous at the management of his
rough business, that it became a proverb, when a man refused to
pay his debts, 'Why don't you _Dun_ him?' that is, why don't you
send Dun to arrest him? Hence it grew a custom, and is now as
old as since the days of Henry VII."