56-58.] NOTES. 137 



1. 12. his estate, etc., he having spent all his own property in 

 making presents to his soldiers. 



1. 14. transported with, carried away by. 



1. 16. he had turned all his estate into obligations, he had 

 spent all his money in securing friends. ' Obligations, 1 used in its 

 literal sense of ' binding ' people to him by his liberality. He 

 was a usurer, because he expected to get interest on his money, 

 in the shape of services from those who had received it. Henry, 

 Duke of Guise, was uncle to Mary Queen of Scots. 



1. 21. the prints and footsteps, the signs. 



1. 23. not as Alexander, etc., i.e., not as a powerful conqueror, 

 but as a student. 



1. 26. argued, inferred, company, companions. Cf. the com 

 mon saying " A man is known by his friends." 



1. 28. permanent, equivalent to ' extant. ' 



1. 33. real passages, vivid descriptions ; by ' real ' is meant 

 1 true to the life.' 



Page 58, 1. 5. congruity of speech, fitness of speech ; i.e., the 

 use of words appropriate to describe the things intended. In the 

 Latin translation the passage stands thus : ' Wherein he did 

 labour to make conventional speech to become correct speech : 

 he wished to substitute an appropriate and correct habit of 

 speech for careless speech, and to make words, which are the 

 images of things, suit the things themselves, instead of obeying 

 simply the will of the multitude.' 



Words are ' the pictures ' of things, because they are the sym 

 bols by which we represent things. Caesar employed such words 

 as the exercise of his reason told him were true pictures of what 

 he wished to express. 



It appears, then, that the object of the book was to remove the 

 errors of vulgar language, and to show that the language of a 

 people may be specially adapted to a clear and appropriate expres 

 sion of ideas. We cannot however speak with any certainty 

 about the book. Bacon calls it here ' a philosophy of grammar ' ; 

 elsewhere he speaks of it as a mere collection of precepts for 

 speaking correctly. 



1. 7. of his power, Caesar completed the regulation of the calen 

 dar, and corrected the erroneous computation of time, agreeably 

 to a plan which he had ingeniously contrived, and which proved 

 of the greatest utility .... Yet this useful invention furnished 

 matter of ridicule to the envious, and to those who could but ill 

 brook his power. For Cicero (if I mistake not), when some one 

 happened to say "Lyra will rise to-morrow," answered, "Un 

 doubtedly, there is an edict for it " : as if the calendar was forced 

 upon them as well as other things. (Plutarch.) 



