ATTICISM

(Gr.) An elegant or concise form of expre ion. Milton, in his Apology for Smectymnuus, thus uses it: " They made sport, and I laughed: they mispronounced, and I misliked; and, to make up the atticism, they were out, and I hi ed." The term Sal Atticum was employed by the Romans at once to characterise the poignancy of wit and brilliancy of style peculiar to the A then i an writers, and to designate the liveline , spirituality, and refined taste of the inhabitants of that city, wliich formed the focus and central point of all the eloquence and refinement of the Greeks. [s. 118]