1804. | 
to which is the height of the vaulting. 
Breadth of the fame in the weftern part, 
where are double rows of pillars, 91 feet. 
The length of the great-crofs-aile, from 
north co fouth, is 131 feet. The height 
of the great fteeple in the middle 269 feet, 
and of the Weftern Tower 95 feet. 
FRENCH AFFECTATION IN MURTHER- 
ING ENGLISH NAMES, 
What my friend, Mr. Bryant, fays in 
refpect to the Greeks, is fo appofite to 
the modern pragtice of the French, in 
mangling Englith proper names, that I 
thall produce the paffage. When I was a 
yourg man, and ufed to be at the late 
Lord Montfort’s, at Horfeth hall, where 
the Duke De Mirepoix very frequently 
vifited, and ftaid fome days, I well re- 
member the difficulty he had, or pretend- 
ed to have, when talking of White’s Cho- 
colate-noufe, where ufed to be a club or 
meeting of the principal nobility for gam- 
ing, to pronounce ihe word club, which he 
always cailed clans. I fuppofe, he thought 
the other too Gothic and grofs; yet there 
are multi:udes of words in his own lan- 
gvage of equal unharmonioulnefs. Mr. 
Waipole had before taken notice of the 
fame delicacy of the French, in his fen- 
fible and mafterly manner. I wiil produce 
both paflages, and afterwards put down a 
few ob/ervations of the fame fort, which 
have occurred in my reading. Mr. Bry- 
ant’s ftricture is to be met with in his 
Differtation on the Heliodian and other 
Grecian Writers, page 167 of his Ana- 
lyiis of Ancient Mythology, vol. I. edit. 
3774. 
‘«* Another reafon may be given for the 
obfcurity in the Grecian hiitory, even 
whew letters had been introduced among 
them. They had a child:fh antipathy to 
every foreign language, and were equally 
prejudiced in favour of their own. This 
has paffed unnoticed; yet was atiended 
with the moft tatal confequences. They 
were mifled by the too great delicacy of 
their ear, and could not bear any term 
which appeared to them barbarous and un- 
couth. On this account they either re- 
jected foreign appellations, or fo medelled 
and changed them, that they became in 
found and meaning effentially different,” 
Mr. Walpole’s obfervation 1s in his ad- 
vertifement before Paul Hentzner’s Jour- 
ney into England, pages vil. viii. ix. x. 
oétavo, Strawberry-Hill, 1757.—‘* With 
regard tu the orthography of proper names, 
though corrected in the tranflation, I have 
left them in the orginal as I found them. 
Accuracy, in that particular, was not the 
Coliana. 
025 
author’s merit. It is a merit peculiar to 
Englifhmen, The French are neghgent 
of it to an affectation: yet the author of 
Mélanges Hiftoriques complains, that other 
nations corrupt French names! He him- 
felf gives fome Englith ones in pages 24.7, 
248, which it is, impofiible to decypher. 
Baflompierre calls York-houle, 64 For= 
chaux ;” and Kenfington, ‘ Inhimthort.” 
As a foldier and ambaffador, he was not 
obliged to knew the names of houfes 5 
when he turned au:hor, there was no ex- 
cufe for not being intelligible. Even Vol- 
taire, who writes the language fo well, 1s 
carelefs in our titles. In England, it 1s 
the defeé&t of a fervant to blunder in pro- 
per names. It is one of thofe tilly preten- 
fions to politenefs, which nations tha: af- 
feét a fuperiority, have always cultivated. 
For in all affeétations, defects are merits. 
The readers of hiftory love certanty : it 
is a pity the writers do not. What con- 
fufion would it have faved, if it had not 
been the cuitom of the Jews to call every 
Darius and Artaxerxes Ahafuerus! It 
were to be willed, that all nations would 
be content to ufe the appellations which 
people, or refpedctve countries, have 
chofen for themielves. Proper names 
ought never to be tortured to any parti 
cular idiom. What a ridiculous compo- 
fition is Au/ugel! Who can conceive that 
Meylandt fignifies Milan, or Leghorne, Li- 
vomo? When one is mifled by a proper 
name, the only ule of which is to direct, 
one feels like the countryman, woo com- 
plained, that the houfes bindered him from 
feeing Paris. The thing becomes an ob- 
firnction to itfelf.”” 
The abfurdity was fo glaring, that even: 
one of that nation, Monfieur ie Duchat, 
criticifes in this manner Philip de Comines, 
for mifcalling a German, of the name of 
Hackembach, by that of Archambsult. 
—‘ Comines n’eit ni le feul, ni le pre 
mier ecrivain Frangois, qui ait dehguré 
lesnoms Allemans. Froifart et Monitre~ 
let font tout pleins de cette forte de taules. 
M. Godefroy, par une note marginale a 
redreffé le nom pretendu Archambault, en 
le nommant Hackembach.’— Ducatianay 
vol. IT. page 414. 
Mr. Thomas Warton, in his Hiftory 
of Englith Poetry, voi. I. pages 339 and 
974, oblerves, upon Froiffar:’s calling 
Kingftcn by the name of ‘* Kinkejiove,” 
that © the French are not much. improved 
at this day in [pelling Eng'ifh pleces and 
names.” He wight have faid, tha: what 
might probably have been a miltake or 
falfe print in Froiffait, is affectation in| 
maby of the more modern writers, who fo 
duguile 
