Note 225 — IV
Reading edition
[Mr. Fitzedward Hall in 1873 says ‘antecedents’ is “not yet a generation old” (Mod. English, 303). Landor in 1853 says “the French have lately taught (it to) us” (Last Fruit of an Old Tree, 176). De Quincey, in 1854 calls it “modern slang” (Works xiv, 449); and the earliest quotation, 1841, given in the N.E.D., introduces it as “what the French call their antecedents”.]