etimes produce
an equivalent, sounding not unlike the original, and making some sort of
sense not altogether inapplicable to the subject-matter. As, for instance,
if any one, impressed with the conviction that our own language is the
mother tongue of mankind, were to derive Crotona from "Crow-town," he
would produce an equivalent, sounding much the same, and having a meaning
which might possibly have been quite applicable to Crotona, though 'tis
pretty certain that it was not as "a city of kites and crows" that place
originally obtained its designation. So Swift's "All-eggs-under-the-grate"
sounds very nearly identical with the name of the Macedonian conqueror,
though it by no means follows that the son of Philip either was partial to
poached eggs, or named accordingly.

Absurd and ridiculous as these instances may appear, they hardly exceed
the folly of some of Becan's and Scrieck's derivations from the Dutch.
Thus Goropius makes [Greek: Apollos] _Af-hol-los_, ("off-hole-loose,")
_i. e._ "_ex antro libera_," or "I _loose_ (the rays of light) off, or out
of, the _hole_ or cavern (of darkness!") and thus Scrieck derives Sequana
(the river Seine) from _see gang_, _i. e._ "_via maris_," or the
"_gang_-way to the _sea_!" and Cecrops from _sea-crops_, _i. e._ "_a
marina gula_," because, we suppose, the Cecropidae came to Greece with
their _crops_ full, (or empty, as the case might be,) after their _sea_
voyage from Egypt.

The indignation and contempt of the learned world seem to have spent
themselves on Goropius; and Scrieck's preposterous labour appears only to
have excited laughter. The most illustrious writers in every department of
erudition had just ceased to occupy the stage. Scrieck, coming out with
his thousand folios of puerilities among a public familiar with the works
of the two Scaligers, of Cassaubon, Lipsius, Cluver, Cambden, and the
other great lights of learning that shed such a lustre on the latter end
of the sixteenth century, was regarded much as Beau Coates may have been
in latter days, presenting himself in the character of Romeo before
audiences accustomed to the highest histrionic efforts of the Kembles. And
as Coates, not satisfied with convulsing his audience by dying before them
in the regular course of the play, would sometimes die over and over again
for their entertainment; so Scrieck, not content with torturing all the
names of men and places in Chaldea, Phoenicia, Egypt, Greece, Italy,
Spain,