luculent example of the Bickerstaff
style in _Gallia Togata_.

"It is said the country was called _Togata_ by the Romans, because
they wore the Roman _toga_ or gown. This seems doubtful, for when a
country became a Roman province, the same reason for the name should
apply universally. We must therefore seek a more satisfactory
derivation for that name, to be found in the circumstances of the
country. Gallia Togata consists of the plain country intersected by
the Po and its numerous tributaries, and surrounded on the north and
west by the high ranges of the Alps, on the south by the Apennines,
and on the east by the Adriatic. It is, perhaps, the best-watered and
most fertile country in Europe, enjoying a delightful climate. Its
name, Togata, says all this, _togh_, _it is the chosen land_, or, to
use an English idiom, _choice land, the most desirable and delightful
country_; _togh a ta_, literally _the chosen spot or place_. Sound,
not sense, suggested the Roman derivation."

Of course Gallia _Braccata_ and Gallia _Comata_ had just as little to say
to "long hair," or a "pair of breeches," as Gallia Togata to a Roman gown,
and the application of _gens togata_ to the inhabitants of Italy, as
contradistinguished from the transalpine and other provinces, was
altogether a blunder of the ancients.

"We have before us again CRETA, the largest of the Greek islands. Its
name is derived by some from the Curetes, who are said to have been
its first inhabitants; by others from the nymph Crete, daughter of
Hesperus; and by others from Creos, a son of Jupiter, and the nymph
Idoea. These are private conceits. It derives its name from its
shape and external appearance from the sea; and had such an island
been discovered in modern times by English navigators, it would have
been called _the ridge_ island, the precise meaning of its name in
Celtic _creit a_, "the ridge," putting the article last, in
conformity to idiom."

CYTHERA, "one of the Ionian Islands. Like all the other names for
which the Greeks had no known origin, they derived it from an
individual called _Cytherus_. It is subject to _heavy showers_, from
which the name _cith_, showers, _er_, great, _a_, the,--that is, _the
island of heavy showers_."

ZACYNTHUS.--"A small island to the south of Cephalonia, (_ce fal ia_;
_i.