148 ANALOGY of GREEK LETTERSi 



" and (TctX-Tri^iiv being now fupplanted by (rv^imtv and ffuXmrTuv' 

 " and that he is not allowed even to grumble, the proper word 

 " yf"'^"" being now no more. Who could have patience to en- 

 " dure fuch indignities ? or what puniftiment is adequate to 

 " the demerits of this moft execrable Tccv ? 



" But, in fliort, he is not only injurious to his kindred tribe 

 of letters, but has already begun to encroach upon the hu- 

 *' man race, in fuch a manner that he permits them not to 

 " make a proper ufe of their tongues. Apropos of tongues, 

 " which this mention of human affairs has introduced, it 

 " brings to mind how the mifcreant has ufurped my province 

 " here too, by metamorphofing yXuira-a,, a tongue, into yXwrra. 

 " O thou villanous Tau ! thou very bane of all tongues ! — 

 " But to return from this digreflion to the defence of men, 

 " whomi he has fo grofsly injured. He attempts to torture their 

 " voice, and bind it with chains. When one perfon beholds 

 " a beautiful objedl, and wiflies to ftyle it na.'Kov, fair, up comes 

 " this Tat», and mod impudently obliges him to call it raXov ; 

 " fuch is the violence of his claim to be at the head of every 

 " thing ! When another is fpeaking of a vine-brauch by the 

 " appellation of »}^^fji,u, he himfelf being rXrif^ou, a wretch, 

 " makes the poor word wretched too, by calling it rXjJi^u,. 

 " Nor are his injuries confined to vulgar men ; he even forms 

 " a plot againft that tremendous Monarch, to whom the earth 

 " and the fea, in a fupernatural manner, are reported to have 

 " yielded * ; and inflead of giving him his proper name Kv^og, 

 " Cyrus, he fpeaks of him by the appellation of Tu^o?, as if 

 " he were a cheefe. 



" Such then are the ways in which he injures men in their 

 " fpeech. But how does he ftill more materially injure them \ 



" They 



* LociAN feems here to allude to the magnificence of the oriental ftyle. Xenophon, 

 in the Anabafis, relates, that Cyrus the younger, with his army, pafTed the Euphrates 

 on foot, which had never been forded in that manner before, and adds — eJo«i< Sho» «»«•, 

 x«* fl-^oi; vT^o^uoYiTui T« 5roT«^oi' Ki/g* 4»5 ^xtriXiCaavrt* Lab. I. See the annotalioa 01 

 Hemstekhuis. 



