The accusative ’s hos, has, and hæc in all grammars,

     Herodotus told some American crammers;

     The vocative here also—caret— ’s no go,

     As Milo found rending an oak-tree, you know;

     And his, like the dative the ablative case is,

     The Furies had most disagreeable faces.

    Nouns declined with two articles, are called common. This word common requires explanation—it is not used in the same sense as that in which we say, that quackery is common in medicine, knavery in the law, and humbug everywhere—pigeons at Crockford’s, lame ducks at the Stock Exchange, Jews at the ditto, and Royal ditto, and foreigners in Leicester Square—No; a common noun is one that is both masculine and feminine; in one sense of the word therefore it is

     uncommon

    . Parens, a parent, which may be declined both with hic, and hæc, is, for obvious reasons, a noun of this class; and so is fur, a thief; likewise miles, a soldier, which will appear strange to those of our readers, who do not call to mind the existence of the ancient amazons; the dashing white sergeant

    being the only female soldier known in modern times. Nor have we more than one authenticated instance of a female sailor, if we except the heroine commemorated in the somewhat apocryphal narrative—Billy Taylor.

    Nouns are called doubtful when declined with the article hic or hæc—whichever you please, as the showman said of the Duke of Wellington and Napoleon Bonaparte. Anguis, a snake, is a doubtful noun. At all events he is a doubtful customer.

    Epicene nouns are those which, though declined with one article only, represent both sexes, as hic passer, a sparrow, hæc aquila, an eagle,—cock and

    hen. A sparrow, however, to say nothing of an eagle, must appear a doubtful noun with regard to gender, to a cockney sportsman.

    After all, there is no rule in the Latin language about gender so comprehensive as that observed in Hampshire, where they call every thing

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