hose
condemnation was re-echoed by all the literary men of note of the day. It
being part of Goropius's system that the ancient Gauls were Dutch, and the
task of showing all the known words of the old Gaulish language to be
significant in Dutch, being, consequently, incumbent on him as a first
step to his bolder speculations on the unexplained names of men and
places, he had, among others, given some ridiculous Dutch equivalents from
the word _ambactus_, which, as we are informed by Festus, meant a slave or
retainer in the old Gaulish tongue. Scaliger, shortly after, editing
Festus, with annotations, and coming to the word in question, took that
opportunity to administer to Goropius the following castigation--"I am
unable to restrain my laughter," he says, "at what this singularly
audacious and impudent person has written against Turnebus on this word.
But, as all his books exhibit nothing else than a most impudent confidence
in himself, so I reject his opinion on this matter as utterly impertinent
and nonsensical. Never have I read greater absurdities; never have I seen,
neither heard of greater or more audacious temerity, seeking, as he does,
to derive all languages from his own barbarous dialect, so as to make the
Hebrew itself inferior to the Dutch; nay, even reprehending Moses for
taking the names of the patriarchs from his native Hebrew. Unlucky
patriarchs and fathers, that were born Philistines of Palestine, and not
Dutchmen of Antwerp!" Abrahan Mylius, another great scholar, though not of
so extended a reputation as either of the Scaligers, soon after expressed
much the same sentiments. "I am not," he says, "so full of wantonness as
to be able to crack his insufferably absurd jokes with Becan, and give the
palm of antiquity to the language of Flanders in preference to the Hebrew,
making it the parent tongue not only of all other languages, but of the
Hebrew itself." Schrevelius, the lexicographer, gave vent to his contempt
in verse:--

"Quis tales probet oscitationes!
Quis has respectat meras chimeras!
Non Judaeus Apella de proseucha,
Non qui de Solymis venit perustis,
Aut quisquam de grege Tabatariorum
Queis phoeni cophinique cura major:
Cimmerii denique non puto probabunt
Et si prognatos Japhet putantur
Gomoroque parente procreati."

Our own Cambden, about the same time commencing his great work on British
Antiquities, began by a protestation against being supposed "insaniam
Becani insan