Page:The battle of the books - Guthkelch - 1908.djvu/281

Rh this of our Examiner: Miletum and Asson were at first supposed to be nominative cases; just as Delphos was mistaken to be like Argos, Samos, and Delos. But we see, upon better information the words were discarded. Neither the stamp of royal authority, nor the universal use in every parish, nay, almost every family of England, for two or three generations, could protect them from being exploded. A most certain argument that the whole kingdom then believed that analogy and reason ought to have a greater force than vulgar error, though established by the longest and commonest custom. In the old translation of Vergil set out by Phaer and Dr Thyne, they are called the twelve books of Vergil's Æneidos; and the running title of every page is, the first, or second, or third book of Vergil's Æneidos. Without question, that was the language in those days all over the nation. So that if the Examiner's Mumpsimus should pass for an argument, the Æneidos should be the current language at this day; and those that call it Æneis must be run down for pedants. I dare venture to foretell the Examiner, that his Delphos in a few years will be thought as barbarous as Æneidos: and if his