With this diagnosis, I abandon them to the printer and the public. Those who read them will form opinions of them, and some who read them not, will do the same thing in accordance with a tempting canon of criticism.
F. L.
Williamstown, Mass., 1896.
The Duke of Berwick
IN the north-east corner of the map of England, or, if you are a Scotchman, in the south-east corner of the map of Scotland, you will find the town of Berwick.
That town was held first to belong to Scotland, and then to England. Then the lawyers tried their hand at it, and made out that it belonged to neither—that a writ issued either in England or Scotland, would not run in Berwick-on-Tweed. So an act of Parliament was passed in the reign of George II., to extend the authority of the British realm to that evasive municipality.
The name is pronounced Berrick. It is a rule in England to spell proper names one way and pronounce them another: thus Edinburgh is Edinboro, Derby is Darby, Brougham is Broom, Cholmondeley is Chumly and so on. This rule is sometimes inconvenient. An American tourist wished to visit the home of Charlotte Brontë. He asked the way to Haworth. Ha-worth! Nobody had ever heard of such a place. No such place in that part of England. At last somebody guessed that this stray foreigner wanted to go to Hawth. Haworth is Hawth.