ON METONYMS. 51 



derful sagacity in a German wliom I knew, wlio would prove that Priam 

 and Abraham, j^neas and Jonas, were the same persons ?" 



In the case of Chinese names the process of Latinising has been of 

 use. Western men would not be in the habit of speaking so readily of 

 Confucius and Mencius had not some ingenious Latinist brought Kung- 

 fu-tse and Meng-Tseu into those respectable forms. In like manner 

 Tao-tze might be Taocius. (Somewhat similarly, Zerdusht or Zara- 

 thustra has been moulded into Zoroaster.) 



Sclavonic proper names, as exemplified in some Polish and Russian 

 examples, look as if it would be difficult to make them presentable in 

 Latin or Greek form. But to one familiar with the philological history 

 of such names a legitimate mode of metonymising them would present 

 itself. It is evident that such names as Przezdziecki and Oleszczyoski, 

 without manipulation, would look ill at ease in a page of Latin. Sar- 

 biewski, we observe, is metonymised into Sarbievius, and the family of 

 Leszynsky is spoken of by de Thou as the domus Lascinia. The real 

 name of the Polish poet Acernus, who died in 1G08, was Klonowicz. 

 (A sister of the emperor Justinian, by birth a Moesian, was called in 

 her native speech Biglinitza : in Latin she became Vigilantia.) 



Early Teutonic names have been subjected to the metonymising pro- 

 cess. To the Latinisation of such names as Merwig, Chlotwig, Die- 

 trich, are diie the familiar Meroveus, Merovingian, Ludovicus, Louis, 

 Theodoric. Deutsch or Teutsch itself was transformed in Italy into 

 Theotiscus, whence the familiar, but (until lately) detested name 

 Tedesco. On a medal of Gregory VIII., commemorative of the mas- 

 sacre of St. Bartholomew, we have the legend VaoNOTTORUiM StraGES, 

 1572, where the word Huguenots, or Eid-genossen, Oath-bound asso- 

 ciates, is metonymised, without being translated. Our 'Vortigera,' 

 however, is more euphonic than the Latinised names assigned him by 

 Gildus and Nennius. In the former he is Gurthrigurnus : in the 

 latter, Guorthigirnus. 



In England, the Latinisation of a proper name has seldom availed 

 to supersede its vernacular form ; nor does it appear that the practice 

 of translating into expressions of equivalent meaning was in much 

 favour. In a few instances, local epithets as designating individuals 

 became familiar. Verulamius would be pretty widely recognised; but 

 popularly, to this day, Francis, Baron Verulam and Viscount St. 

 Albans, is simply Lord Bacon. Armachanus would be held to denote 

 either the pre- Reformation reformer Richard Fitz Ralph, archbishop of 



