Page:The battle of the books - Guthkelch - 1908.djvu/280

206 instead of Sumpsimus; and when a learned man told him of his blunder, "I'll not change" (says he) "my old Mumpsimus for your new Sumpsimus." 'Tis a known story, but I will give it him in the words of Sir Richard Pace who was "a man of business, and an ambassador too," and upon those accounts will have more authority with the Examiner. If Mr B. then, will not change his old Delphos for our new Delphi, he shall have leave to keep his Mumpsimus as long as he pleases. But when he would put it upon us for good English, for that we must beg his pardon. The word is not yet so naturalized in England, but it may, and certainly will, be sent back again to Barbary, its native country. We have instances of other words that had both longer continuance and more general reception than he can plead for his Delphos; and yet they were "hissed off the stage" at last. In the old editions of the English Bibles in Henry the Eighth's time it was printed Asson and Mileton; afterwards, under Queen Elizabeth, it was changed into Asson and Miletum; but in the last review, under King James the First, it was rectified Assos and Miletus, Here's a case that's exactly parallel with