Mr. Freeman, as well as in most of the best authorities. Yes! I perfectly knew that Orderic was born in England, having had all that Mr. Freeman tells us about him before my eyes when writing. But as Orderic left England at the age of ten, and passed his whole life in Normandy, I did not find it needful to mention the place of his birth. I state all these trifles in order to show that I did not write at a venture; and I said nothing for which I had not a first-rate authority.

I mention a few points whereon he declares me to have blundered: but where the blunders are not mine, but his. Where, he asks, did I get the form Knud, for Cnut? Knud,' says Mr. Freeman, 'is quite beyond me.' Well! I got the form Knud from Mr. Freeman himself. In his Old-English History, edition of 1878, p. 222 (a little book expressly written for children), I read as follows:-'Cnut or Knud is his real name. He is often called Canutus or Canute. . . . It is better to call him by his own name.' Again, in the Norman Conquest, vol. i. p. 442 (edition of 1867), I find as follows:- Cnut or Knud, in one syllable, is this king's true name.' Having these passages under my eye, I wrote:- Cnut or Knud... had rather a queer look.' I did not say that Mr. Freeman constantly used Knud. He tells children it is better to call the king by his own name; and that Cnut or Knud is his real name. And now, he says, Knud is quite beyond him; and that it would indeed look odd to talk about Knud. So I said.

Next he says that I used the term Kaiserinn Mathildis, as a contemporary English form. I did nothing of the kind. I used it as a German form. It chanced that I had taken a note of a piece by the German historian, Treitschke, about another Empress Matilda, "Heinrich I. und Mathildis,' he using the Latin form with the title Kaiserinn. My argument was that, if Edward the Confessor has to be Eadward, Stephen of Blois ought to be Estienne, as a Frenchman, and Maud ought to be Kaiserinn Mathildis, as a German. As she married a German, and retained a German title, the highest of all titles, I was arguing that, to be consistent, she should keep the German style in full.

Then about Edward the Elder. Mr. Freeman reproves me for saying that Edward called himself Rex Anglo-Saxonum'; that it ought to be 'Rex Angul-Saxonum.' It so happens, that to be quite safe, I had before me, when I was writing this sentence, that admirable little book, Old-English History, by E. A. Freeman, p. 139, edition of 1878; where I read that, 'He [i.e. Edward] commonly calls himself Rex Anglo-Saxonum' (sic). I simply copied out those words, as I was dealing with Mr. Freeman about a popular mode of speech. I was quite aware that the spelling of the Charters is Rex Angul-Saxonum,' because, in writing, I had under my eye as well Mr. Green's Conquest of England, pp. 192, 193, and Bishop

Stubbs's History, vol. i. p. 173, both of which so spell the title. But since the matter in hand was the name Anglo-Saxon itself, not the spelling of the name, I was satisfied to follow Mr. Freeman's Rex Anglo-Saxonum.'

By the way, I venture to ask if Mr. Freeman's 'commonly' here is not a little too strong. And I ought perhaps to warn him that I have read all the charters of the Rex invictissimus Eadwardus both in Kemble and in Thorpe. I did not say that a succession of historians and scholars have used the Latin phrase, Rex Anglo-Saxonum,' but that they had used the term' (i.e. Anglo-Saxon). This is a fair specimen of how Mr. Freeman tries to screw blunders out of perfectly plain and accurate language.

6

Then, says Mr. Freeman to me, whence do I get my Karl; and where for twenty years past has he himself said anything about Karl? I did not assert that Mr. Freeman usually writes of Charlemagne as Karl. On the contrary, I wrote- Professor Freeman taught us to speak of Charles the Great. When, later on, I wrote-' we have all learned to speak by the card of Karl,' I had in my mind and under my eye a very famous Essay, where I read the name Karl, six times in twenty lines of print, all about the legend of Charlemagne,' and the history of Karl.' My edition of this Essay bears the date 1872. I cannot undertake to remember all the editions of all Mr. Freeman's books; or when he first dropped Karl. But having written that 'Professor Freeman taught us to speak of Charles the Great,' I felt amply justified by this Essay in adding in a merry vein, we have all learned to speak by the card of Karl.' Professor Freeman's lessons are not so soon forgotten as he thinks.

6

And now about Charlemagne. Of course the whole world knows all that Mr. Freeman has been telling us for twenty years about Karl, Charles, and Charlemagne, and the important significance of these forms. Charlemagne, he says, is a 'French name,' only to be used when one is speaking of him distinctly as a subject of French tales' (Old-English History, p. 332). That seems to me to be affectation. Charlemagne is now an English word, a word used of the historic Charles by the best scholars, and fixed indelibly in English literature by them. I think 'Charles the Great' an excellent name, and often use it. But since Gibbon, Hallam, Milman, Sir H. Maine, and many other scholars, have used the name Charlemagne of the historical emperor, I maintain that it is a good English term. It came to us through the French, as thousands of words came; but it is now as good English as Lombardy, or Normandy, Cologne, or Treves. One might as well say that mutton and beef are French names; and tell children that it is good manners always to ask for sheep and ox. Mr. Freeman has explained that his objection to Charlemagne arises from this, that we shall never understand the Empire until 'all French influences are wholly cast aside and trampled under foot.' There is no more Truth' in Charles than in Charle

magne. Truth requires Karl. Etymology is not truth; nor is it history. If we are to take down Skeat's Etymological Dictionary before we may speak our mother tongue, and never use a word of French derivation for fear of awakening 'false ideas,' we shall never get our dinners at all. One would think Mr. Freeman can never bring himself to speak of the Fortnightly Review or the month of December; and not to awaken false ideas,' that he always speaks of our contemporary as the Monthly,' and calls the twelfth month of the year-Duodecember.

Mr. Freeman makes it a great point that I said the Latinised form of Edward was not usually spelt with the double vowel; and he 'can only infer that I write purely at a venture.' Now it happens that I did refer to contemporary authorities to see at what date, and to what extent, the double vowel dropped out of the Latin form. The Latinised form of Edward is so continually quoted by eminent scholars in its modern shape, that it would be misleading to rely on citations. I accordingly consulted a good many chronicles in the Rolls Series. I should have been more correct had I written not uniformly,' instead of 'not usually.' But in Thorpe's collection of Charters there are scores of examples of Saxon names written in Latin before the Conquest without the double vowel. I did not say that either practice was invariable. At no period was it invariable.

6

Mr. Freeman asks me if I object to physiologists changing 'musk-ox' into 'musk-sheep.' Not at all. Musk-ox' is rather a description than a name. But I should object very much to find in Owen's Comparative Physiology our old friend Hippopotamus turned into Hyopotamus, in the name of truth.' When Professor Freeman tells children not to say Charlemagne, because he was not a Frenchman, it is just as if Professor Huxley told them not to say Hippopotamus, because the animal is not a horse. Names are labels, not definitions.

In conclusion, I briefly answer a few questions. I do not strain at the forms in Kemble, because Kemble's works are technical textbooks, not popular histories, and consist mainly of verbatim extracts. Nearly every one of my illustrations was purposely taken from Mr. Freeman's Old-English History, specially written for children. What I said of Hrofesceaster, Cant-wara-byryg, the Hwiccas, was, that they had rather a queer look.' All are found in the text of Mr. Green's admirable book, The Making of England. I spell the Hwiccas either as in the Latin Wiccii, or with Hw transposed into Wh. We no longer write Hwitcirice, we write Whitchurch. As Mr. Freeman tells the children (Old-English History, Preface): Hw is simply what we now write wh.' Precisely then, say I, let us so write it. Since I had under my eyes, when I made a note of the name Hwiccas, Mr. Green's account of the battle of Wanborough, I suppose I knew who the Hwiccas were.

Certainly, Mr. Grote did begin the resetting of Greek names in England. As I was writing about English literature, it did not occur to me to speak about the practice of Germans, when writing German. I never said anything about Képkνра, or Corfu. I said that Mr. Grote writes Korkyra. So he does. I wonder that Mr. Freeman did not assert that, in objecting to Krete, I thought Candia was the same word. All this reminds me of my old master at school, when determined to make out that one of us ought to be caned.

Mr. Freeman's reason for eviscerating English history of the Battle of Hastings is the danger' that somebody might think (as a critic once did) that Taillefer sang his song on the sea-shore. I can face even this danger, rather than cease to speak of the Battle of Hastings. And he asks me if I think it pedantic to speak of the Battle of Stamford-bridge. Certainly not: that is the name by which I have always heard of it. I might think it pedantic to write Stantford-brigge, as William of Malmesbury does.

As to Buonaparte, I was well aware that this was the original form of the family name, and was used by Napoleon in his early career. But the absolute de facto ruler of a nation has certainly the official right to change the spelling of his own name. And as Napoleon when Emperor did this, there is an end of the matter. Our grandfathers, Scott included, treating him as the Corsican bandit,' naturally stuck to the old name, by way of saying 'Corsican.' But to speak in 1886 of either Buonaparte,' is to carry lampoons into history. I neither said, nor implied, that Capet and Guelph are hereditary surnames. I suggested that Terrorists and O'Donovan Rossa possibly thought they were. With regard to the title under which my essay appeared in January, it happens that I did not so write it, nor did I see the actual title until the Review was published. Mr. Freeman seems inclined to give a new sense to the word 'pedantic.' He suggests that it means accurate,' the making words answer facts. Not so! No amount of accuracy' can be pedantic; but' singularity' may be, when it is uncouth and needless. It is pedantic to twist old words into new forms, and to try to turn old names into battle-cries and badges.

Names and words are current coin of the realm; which, for public convenience, have definite values; and to clip and deface them is to debase the linguistic currency. It is the part of a good citizen and a sensible man to carry on his transactions in the current coin, taking them and counting them at their official value. If a man, in order to make his words answer to facts, and not to raise any 'false ideas,' were to cut a five-shilling piece in two, and to offer the bits as two half-crowns, the public would call him crazy, and the police would treat him as a smasher.' Mr. Freeman is really trying to pass amongst the lieges Saxon sceats and scillings, as if they were good current coin. The first magistrate before whom he is brought

will tell him that sceats and scillings are not now in circulation, and that private persons have not the right of coining.

Of course in this matter of spelling there are very real and important points behind. It is a serious evil to unsettle the language. It is unkind to throw fresh stumbling-blocks in the way of education. All singularity in forms, without motive or without adequate motive, is a fresh difficulty, and a source of offence. The plan of trampling under foot all French influences, or other influences, is a one-sided plan, a short-sighted plan. To give tithe of mint and anise in Old-English names, and to leave all the weightier names in universal history in their vulgar shapes, is a misleading purism. If we tried to torture all names in history out of their current forms and into their contemporary orthography, if we tried with the modern alphabet to represent the various sounds of a hundred different languages, to spell the same name in a dozen different forms, according to the century of which we are speaking this would produce a literary chaos. And, since there is no adequate reason for specially selecting any one epoch or any one race for this equivocal distinction, it is the part of good sense, and good English, to be content with the current names long familiar to us in the best literature. These names, no doubt, do differ moderately, and from time to time, as language grows, changes in form are spontaneously adopted. But the claim of any scholar, however eminent, of any knot of scholars (and I look on the knot of Old-English scholars as amongst the most eminent of our time) to sweep the board of the familiar names for one particular epoch, and systematically to force on us and on our children another language in names-this is a bad claim and ought to be resisted.

And now let me say that I have no kind of quarrel with Mr. Freeman, of whose works I am a diligent student and a humble admirer. I am very much against any process of trampling under foot, and against all uncouth forms of good old names. In this matter I am the real conservative. It will not do for the Old-English people to say that they are merely reviving an ancient practice. Mr. Hyndman might as well declare that the meeting in Hyde Park was only a revival of the Witenagemot. It is I who am defending the practice of learned men, of the men of the widest learning, even in this particular subject. The idea that Mr. Freeman, in this debate, represents Truth, Fact, Scholarship, and Research, and that I represent nothing but frivolous trifling with serious learning, is a mere hallucination of his own. I am asking Mr. Freeman and his followers to conform to the practice of an authority at least as great as their own-that of the Bishop of Chester. Dr. Stubbs, in his great work, follows a form of names, eminently wise, practical, and decisive. He finds nothing difficult, nothing false, in writing Alfred and Edward, Clovis and Canute, Anglo-Saxon and the Battle of