Page:The Works of the Rev. Jonathan Swift, Volume 16.djvu/296

288 many of whom going for traffick thither, and finding that the inhabitants had but one well in the town of * * * *, from whence certain porters used to carry the water through the city in great pails, so heavy that they were often forced to set them down for ease; the tired porters, after they had set down the pails, and wanted to take them up again, would call for assistance to those who were nearest, in these words, Pail up, and ease us. The stranger Greeks, hearing these words repeated a thousand times as they passed the street, thought the inhabitants were pronouncing the name of their country, which made the foreign Greeks call it Peloponnesus, a manifest corruption of Pail up, and ease us.

Having mentioned so many Grecians to prove my hypothesis, I shall not tire the reader with producing an equal number of Romans, as I might easily do. Some few will be sufficient.

Cæsar was the greatest captain of that empire. The word ought to be spelt Seizer, because he seized on not only most of the known world, but even the liberties of his own country: so that a more proper appellation could not have been given him.

Cicero was a poor scholar in the university of Athens, wherewith his enemies in Rome used to reproach him; and, as he passed the streets, would call out, O Ciser, Ciser o! A word still used in Cambridge, and answers to a servitor in Oxford.

Anibal was a sworn enemy of the Romans, and gained many glorious victories over them. This name appears, at first repeating, to be a metaphor drawn from tennis, expressing a skilful gamester, who can take any ball; and is very justly applied to so renowned a commander. Navigators are led into a strange