t, for instance (Vol. I, p. 44), have spoken of Charles
de Bovelles,[604] of Lefevre d'Etaples,[605] of Pelerin,[606] and of
Etienne.[607] But I prefer the old plan. Those who like another plan
better, are welcome to substitute with a pen, when they know what to write;
when they do not, it is clear that they would not have understood me if I
had given modern names.

The principal advisers of King Custom are as follows. First, there is
Etymology, the _chiffonnier_, or general rag-merchant, who has made such a
fortune of late years in his own business that he begins to be considered
highly respectable. He gives advice which is more thought of than followed,
partly on account of the fearful extremes into which he runs. He lately
asked some boys of sixteen, at a matriculation examination in _English_, to
what branch of {325} the Indo-Germanic family they felt inclined to refer
the Pushto language, and what changes in the force of the letters took
place in passing from Greek into Moeso-Gothic. Because all syllables were
once words, he is a little inclined to insist that they shall be so still.
He would gladly rule English with a Saxon rod, which might be permitted
with a certain discretion which he has never attained: and when opposed, he
defends himself with analogies of the Aryan family until those who hear him
long for the discovery of an Athanasyus. He will transport a word beyond
seas--he is recorder of Rhematopolis--on circumstantial evidence which
looks like mystery gone mad; but, strange to say, something very often
comes to light after sentence is passed which proves the soundness of the
conviction.

The next adviser is Logic, a swearing old justice of peace, quorum, and
rotulorum, whose excesses brought on such a fit of the gout that for many
years he was unable to move. He is now mending, and his friends say he has
sown his wild oats. He has some influence with the educated subjects of
Custom, and will have more, if he can learn the line at which interference
ought to stop: with them he has succeeded in making an affirmative of two
negatives; but the vulgar won't never have nothing to say to him. He has
always railed at Milton for writing that Eve was the fairest of her
daughters; but has never satisfactorily shown what Milton ought to have
said instead.

The third adviser has more influence with the mass of the subjects of King
Custom than the other two put together; his name is Fiddlefaddle, the
toy-shop keepe