54 ON METONYMS. 



Hallatn says of Bacbanaa's Reriim Scoticarum Historia, " Few 

 modern histories are more redolent of an antique air." Lit. Hist. ii. 

 356. The illusion is maintained by the classical sound of the proper 

 names euphoniously metonymised, without regard, however, to their 

 etymology. With Buchanan Ramsay is Ramsgeus; Huntley, Hunt- 

 liasus ; Cunningham, Cunigamius ; Andrew Ker, Andreas Carus ; 

 Colin, Calenus; Arthur, Arcturus; Bruce, Brussius ; Eliot, _^liotus; 

 Creighton, Crihtonius, &c. Wishart be ventures to make Sophocar- 

 dlus. The name of the early Scottish historian Hector Boethius is a 

 Latinisation of Hector Boece, Boeis, probably Boyce. Sometimes he 

 is Boeotius. We have seen Boyd transformed into Bodius, Price into 

 Pricseus, and Ross into Rossasus. Alexander Hoss, author of the curi- 

 ous cento entitled Virgilii Evangelizantis Christias, thus Latinises his 

 name : although at the close of his dedication ad Illustrissimum Pue- 

 rum, Carolum, Magnae Britanniae Principem, (afterwards Charles IL) 

 he subscribes himself Alex. Ros (Dew). On the title page (ed. Lond. 

 1638,) there is a representation of himself, crowned with laurel, and 

 blowing a trumpet: an epigram underneath, with allusions to the con- 

 ceit in Ros, explains the whole : 



Hsec est Virgilii quam cernis buccina, nuper 



Muta, sed ad flatum nunc animata meum. 

 Illius h£ec laurus; jam nostra in fronte virescens 



Quse, nisi Ros foveat, marcida laurus erit. 

 Quid sine voce tuba est ? vel quid sine Roee corolla ? 



Buccina voce crepat, laurea Rore viret. 



Owen, the epigrammatist, is, on his own authority, and that of his 

 encomiasts, at the beginning of his little volume, Audoenus. Andrew 

 Borde, the original ' merry Andrew,' author of the ' Merrye Tales of 

 the Madmen of Gotham,' called himself, by a kind of Artemus-Ward 

 effort, Andreas Perforatus (Bored). The title page of Howell's ' Fami- 

 liar Letters ' has a Ciceronian aspect by virtue of its first heading — • 

 Epistolse Hoellianse. Fuller, in his Worthies of England, (i 407} 

 plays in his usual strain, on the name of Bp. Jewel. " It may be said 

 of his surname, nomen, omen; Jewel his name and precious his vir- 

 tues; so that if the like ambition led us Englishmen, which doth for- 

 eigners, speciously to render our surnames in Greek or Latin, he may 

 be termed Johannes Gemma, on better account than Gemma Frisius 

 entitleth himself thereunto." (Gemma Frisius we have ah-eadj 

 noticed .) 



