Throughout this book I have called people by the names which denote them in their books, or by our vernacular names. This is the intelligible way of proceeding. I might, for instance (Vol. I, p. 44), have spoken of Charles de Bovelles,[604] of Lefèvre d'Étaples,[605] of Pèlerin,[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.