The above reminds me of a class of paradoxers whom I wonder that I forgot; they are without exception the greatest bores of all, because they can put the small end of their paradox into any literary conversation whatever. I mean the people who have heard the local pronunciation of celebrated names, and attempt not only to imitate it, but to impose on others their broken German or Arabic, or what not. They also learn the vernacular names of those who are generally spoken of in their Latin forms; at least, they learn a few cases, and hawk them as evidences of erudition. They are miserably mistaken: scholarship, as a rule, {323} always accepts the vernacular form of a name which has vernacular celebrity. Hallam writes Behmen: his index-maker, rather superfluously, gives "_Behmen_ or Boehm." And he retains Melanchthon,[601] the name given by Reuchlin[602] to his little kinsman Schwartzerd, because the world has adopted it: but he will none of Capnio, the name which Reuchlin fitted on to himself, because the world has not adopted it. He calls the old forms pedantry: but he sees that the rejection of well-established results of pedantry would be greater pedantry still. The paradoxers assume the question that it is more _correct_ to sound a man by lame imitation of his own countrymen than as usual in the country in which the sound is to be made. Against them are, first, the world at large; next, an overpowering majority of those who know something about surnames and their history. Some thirty years ago--a fact--there appeared at the police-office a complainant who found his own law. In the course of his argument, he asked, "What does Kitty say?"--"Who's Kitty?" said the magistrate, "your wife, or your nurse?"--"Sir! I mean Kitty, the celebrated lawyer."--"Oh!" said the magistrate, "I suspect you mean Mr. Chitty,[603] the author of the great work on pleading."--"I do sir! But Chitty is an Italian name, and ought to be pronounced _Kitty_." This man was a full-blown flower: but there is many a modest bud; and all ought either to blush when seen or to waste their pronunciation on the desert air. {324} A PLEA FOR KING CUSTOM. I stand up for King Custom, or _Usus_, as Horace called him, with whom is _arbitrium_ the decision, and _jus_ the right, and _norma_ the way of deciding, simply because he has _potestas_ the power. He may admit one and another principle to advise: but Custom is not a constitutional king; he may listen to his cabinet, but he decides for himself: and if the ministry should resign, he blesses his stars and does without them. We have a glorious liberty in England of owning neither dictionary, grammar, nor spelling-book: as many as choose write by either of the three, and decide all disputed points their own way, those following them who please.