that to propose to expel them now was as if, having
passed an alien act for the banishment of all foreigners, we should
proceed to include under that name, and as such drive forth from the
kingdom, the descendants of the French Protestants who found refuge here
at the Revocation of the Edict of Nantes, or even of the Flemings who
settled among us in the time of our Edwards. One notable enthusiast in
this line proposed to create an entirely new nomenclature for all the
mythological personages of the Greek and the Roman pantheon, who, one
would think, might have been allowed, if any, to retain their Greek and
Latin names. So far however from this, they were to exchange these for
equivalent German titles; Cupid was to be 'Lustkind', Flora 'Bluminne',
Aurora 'Roethin'; instead of Apollo schoolboys were to speak of
'Singhold'; instead of Pan of 'Schaflieb'; instead of Jupiter of
'Helfevater', with much else of the same kind. Let us beware (and the
warning extends much further than to the matter in hand) of making a
good cause ridiculous by our manner of supporting it, of assuming that
exaggerations on one side can only be redressed by exaggerations as
great upon the other.

{FOOTNOTES}

{38} Thus Alexander Gil, head-master of St. Paul's School, in his book,
_Logonomia Anglica_, 1621, _Preface_: Huc usque peregrinae voces in
lingua Anglica inauditae. Tandem circa annum 1400 Galfridus
Chaucerus, infausto omine, vocabulis Gallicis et Latinis poesin
suam famosam reddidit. The whole passage, which is too long to
quote, as indeed the whole book, is curious. Gil was an earnest
advocate of phonetic spelling, and has adopted it in all his
English quotations in this book.

{39} We may observe exactly the same in Plautus: a multitude of Greek
words are used by him, which the Latin language did not want, and
therefore refused to take up; thus 'clepta', 'zamia' ({Greek:
ze:mia}), 'danista', 'harpagare', 'apolactizare', 'nauclerus',
'strategus', 'morologus', 'phylaca', 'malacus', 'sycophantia',
'euscheme' ({Greek: eusche:mo:s}), 'dulice' ({Greek: douliko:s}),
[so 'scymnus' by Lucretius], none of which, I believe, are employed
except by him; 'mastigias' and 'techna' appear also in Terence. Yet
only experience could show that they were superfluous; and at the
epoch of Latin literature in which Plautus lived, it was well done
to put them on trial.

{