king Psammetichus, who may, not inappropriately, be termed the
James the First of his dynasty:--

"The Egyptians, before the reign of Psammetichus, considered
themselves the oldest of mankind; but, after the reign of
Psammetichus, enquiry having been made as to whether that were the
case, thenceforth they considered the Phrygians to be their elders,
themselves being next in seniority. For Psammetichus, finding no
satisfactory solution to his enquiry on this subject, devised the
following plan: He took two infant boys, born of humble parents, and
committed them to the care of a shepherd, to be educated in this
manner--that he should not permit any one to utter a sound in their
hearing, but should keep them by themselves in a lonely house,
admitting only she-goats at stated times to suckle them, and
rendering them the other requisite services himself. So he did so;
and Psammetichus directed him, as soon as the infants should cease
their inarticulate cries, that he should carefully note what word
they should first utter. And so it was, that, after the lapse of two
years, both infants, with outstretched hands, running to meet their
attendant the shepherd, as he entered one day, cried out, 'becco.' Of
which the shepherd at first made no report, but hearing them
reiterate the same, as often as he went to visit them, he informed
his lord, and, by his commands, brought the boys and exhibited them;
whereupon Psammetichus, as soon as he heard them, enquired 'what
nation they were who called any thing by the name of _becco_?' to
which enquiry he learned for answer, that the Phrygians call _bread_
by that name. So the Egyptians being convinced by that argument,
conceded the point, that the Phrygians had existed before them. 'All
which,' says the father of history, 'I learned from the priests of
Vulcan at Memphis.'"

This story, after exciting the smiles of the learned for about two
thousand years, fell, in an evil hour for the peace of mind of modern
philologers, into the hands of John Goropius Becan, a man of letters at
Antwerp, who, recollecting that _bec_ has a like signification in Dutch,
(_bec_ in that language meaning bread, and _becker_, as in our own, a
baker,) immediately jumped to the conclusion, that Dutch must have been
the language of the Phrygians, and that the Dutch were consequently