38. +Latin of the Fourth Period.+-- (ii) This went on to such an extent in the sixteenth and the beginning of the seventeenth century, that one writer says of those who spoke and wrote this Latinised English, “If some of their mothers were alive, they were not able to tell what they say.” And Sir Thomas Browne (1605-1682) remarks: “If elegancy (= the use of Latin words) still proceedeth, and English pens maintain that stream we have of late observed to flow from many, we shall, within a few years, be fain to learn Latin to understand English, and a work will prove of equal facility in either.” Mr Alexander Gill, an eminent schoolmaster, and the then head-master of St Paul’s School, where, among his other pupils, he taught John Milton, wrote a book in 1619 on the English language; and, among other remarks, he says: “O harsh lips! I now hear all around me such words as _common_, _vices_, _envy_, _malice_; even _virtue_, _study_, _justice_, _pity_, _mercy_, _compassion_, _profit_, _commodity_, _colour_, _grace_, _favour_, _acceptance_. But whither, I pray, in all the world, have you banished those words which our forefathers used for these new-fangled ones? Are our words to be executed like our citizens?” And he calls this fashion of using Latin words “the new mange in our speaking and writing.” But the fashion went on growing; and even uneducated people thought it a clever thing to use a Latin instead of a good English word. Samuel Rowlands, a writer in the seventeenth century, ridicules this affectation in a few lines of verse. He pretends that he was out walking on the highroad, and met a countryman who wanted to know what o’clock it was, and whether he was on the right way to the town or village he was making for. The writer saw at once that he was a simple bumpkin; and, when he heard that he had lost his way, he turned up his nose at the poor fellow, and ordered him to be off at once. Here are the lines:-- “As on the way I itinerated, A rural person I obviated, Interrogating time’s transitation, And of the passage demonstration. My apprehension did ingenious scan That he was merely a simplician; So, when I saw he was extravagánt, Unto the óbscure vulgar consonánt, I bade him vanish most promiscuously, And not contaminate my company.” 39. +Latin of the Fourth Period.+-- (iii) What happened in the case of the Norman-French contribution, happened also in this. The language became saturated with these new Latin words, until it became satiated, then, as it were, disgusted, and would take no more. Hundreds of “Long-tailed words in _osity_ and _ation_”