The
'pheasant' reached us from the banks of the Phasis; the 'bantam' from a
Dutch settlement in Java so called; the 'canary' bird and wine, both
from the island so named; the 'peach' (persica) declares itself a
Persian fruit; 'currants' derived their name from Corinth, whence they
were mostly shipped; the 'damson' is the 'damascene' or plum of
Damascus; the 'bergamot' pear is named from Bergamo in Italy; the
'quince' has undergone so many changes in its progress through Italian
and French to us, that it hardly retains any trace of Cydon (malum
Cydonium), a town of Crete, from which it was supposed to proceed.
'Solecisms,' if I may find room for them here, are from Soloe, an
Athenian colony in Cilicia, whose members soon forgot the Attic
refinement of speech, and became notorious for the ungrammatical Greek
which they talked.
And as things thus keep record in the names which they bear of the
quarters from which they reached us, so also will they often do of the
persons who, as authors, inventors, or discoverers, or in some other
way, stood in near connexion with them. A collection in any language of
all the names of persons which have since become names of things--from
nomina _apellativa_ have become nomina _realia_--would be very curious
and interesting, I will enumerate a few. Where the matter is not
familiar to you, it will not be unprofitable to work back from the word
or thing to the person, and to learn more accurately the connexion
between them.
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