Many a fair flower is burdened with preposterous appellatives, Which the wiser simplicity of rustics entitled by its beauties; And often the conceit of science, loving to be thought cosmopolite, Shall mingle names of every clime, alike obscure to each. There is wisdom in calling a thing fitly; name should note particulars Through a character obvious to all men, and worthy of their instant acceptation. The herbalist had a simple cause for every word upon his catalogue, But now the mouth of Botany is filled with empty sound; And many a peasant hath an answer on his tongue, concerning some vexed flower, Shrewder than the centipede phrase, wherewithal philosophers invest it. For that, the foolishness of pride, and flatteries of cringing homage, Strew with chaff the threshing-floors of science; names perplex them all: The entomologist, who hath pried upon an insect, straightway shall endow it with his name; It had many qualities and marks of note,--but in chief, a vain observer: The geographer shall journey to the pole, through biting frost and desolation, And, for some simple patron's sake, shall name that land, the happy: The fossilist hath found a bone, the rib of some huge lizard, And forthwith standeth to it sponsor, to tack himself on reptile immortalities: The sportsman, hunting at the Cape, found some strange-horned antelope, The spots are new, the fame is cheap, and so his name is added. Thus, obscurities encumber knowledge, even by the vanity of men Who play into each other's hand the game of giving names. Various are the names of men, and drawn from different wells; Aspects of body, or characters of mind, the creature's first idea: And some have sprung of trades, and some of dignities or office; Other some added to a father's, and yet more growing from a place: Animal creation, with sciences, and things,--their composites, and near associations, Contributed their symbollings of old, wherewith to title men: And heraldry set upon its cresture the figured attributes as ensigns By which, as by a name concrete, its bearer should be known.