Knowing all this, Lord
Glenvarloch, though a courtier of only five minutes' standing, had
address enough to reply--
"_Vivum quidem, haud diu est, hominem videbam--vigere autem quis dicat
qui sub fulminibus eloquentiae tuae, rex magne, jamdudum pronus jacet,
et prostratus?_"
[Footnote: Lest any lady or gentleman should suspect there is aught of
mystery concealed under the sentences printed in Italics, they will be
pleased to understand that they contain only a few commonplace Latin
phrases, relating to the state of letters in Holland, which neither
deserve, nor would endure, a literal translation.]
This last tribute to his polemical powers completed James's happiness,
which the triumph of exhibiting his erudition had already raised to a
considerable height.
He rubbed his hands, snapped his fingers, fidgeted, chuckled,
exclaimed--"_Euge! Belle! Optime!_" and turning to the Bishops of
Exeter and Oxford, who stood behind him, he said.--"Ye see, my lords,
no bad specimen of our Scottish Latinity, with which language we would
all our subjects of England were as well embued as this, and other
youths of honourable birth, in our auld kingdom; also, we keep the
genuine and Roman pronunciation, like other learned nations on the
continent, sae that we hold communing with any scholar in the
universe, who can but speak the Latin tongue; whereas ye, our learned
subjects of England, have introduced into your universities, otherwise
most learned, a fashion of pronouncing like unto the 'nippit foot and
clippit foot' of the bride in the fairy tale, whilk manner of speech,
(take it not amiss that I be round with you) can be understood by no
nation on earth saving yourselves; whereby Latin, _quoad anglos_,
ceaseth to be _communis lingua_, the general dragoman, or interpreter,
between all the wise men of the earth.
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