INTRODUCTION. 
than this cannot be done; the finality attainable in specific 
names is impossible in generic. 
With regard to “ common ” names, my views are not obscure. 
It is perfectly absurd to pretend that there can be a common 
English name for Alpine species that are neither English nor 
common. Indeed, even if they were natives of England, it by 
no means follows that they would have English names, for we 
are not an observant race: we do not, like the Spaniards, have 
a distinct vernacular for our chief plants; and, when even so 
illustrious a native as Gentiana verna has no label of its own in 
our language, it is an idle affectation to devise one for others. 
Unfortunately there once arose in the past a vivid personality 
who had a craze for such illegitimate furbelows ; and the glamour 
of Mr. Ruskin’s fame has dazzled some of the simpler-minded 
whom eloquence convinces, into adopting a belief that every word 
he wrote was dictated verbally by an angel. This is not so. 
Mr. Ruskin was a man of fervid and sonorous genius ; he was also 
a man perpetually swept by various enthusiasms of ever-increasing 
intensity. One of his many manias, then, was this coining of 
“common” names for plants that could never possess them ; 
like all such efforts to produce an effect which is only attainable 
by natural evolution, the results have always an afiected and 
pretentious air, which ultimately proves their undoing. No such 
artificialities can linger long in a living language, and Mr. Ruskin’s 
Wardour Street conceits have long since perished out of our 
speech (if indeed they ever had a place there), and survive only 
on the pens of an occasional veteran, or at the heads of columns 
in catalogues, which then go on to speak of the plant in question 
by its accepted Englished name. We may well be thankful: what 
could possibly be easier or more beautiful than “ Campanula” ? 
What affectation more gratuitous and silly than “ Bell-flower ” ? 
The craze reached its wildest height, however, in the unnecessary 
attempt to replace the simple, apt, and balanced syllables of 
“ Saxifrage ” (a good English name into the bargain!) by the 
regrettable brummagem mediaevalism of “ Rockfoil.” Such has 
been the work of these name-coiners ; they have given no help 
(1,919) xvii B 
