———————His ample shield
Is falsified, and round with javelins filled.—P. 61.
When I read this Æneïd to many of my friends in company together, most of them quarrelled at the word falsified, as an innovation in our language. The fact is confessed; for I remember not to have read it in any English author, though perhaps it may be found in Spenser's "Fairy Queen;" but, suppose it be not there, why am I forbidden to borrow from the Italian (a polished language) the word which is wanting in my native tongue? Terence has often Grecised; Lucretius has followed his example, and pleaded for it—
Sic quia me cogit patrii sermonis egestus.
Virgil has confirmed it by his frequent practice; and even Cicero in prose, wanting terms of philosophy in the Latin tongue, has taken them from Aristotle's Greek. Horace has given us a rule for coining words, si Græco fonte cadant; especially, when other words are joined with them, which explain the sense. I use the word falsify in this place, to mean, that the shield of Turnus was not of proof against the spears and javelins of the Trojans, which had pierced it through and through (as we say) in many places. The words which accompany this new one, make my meaning plain, according to the precept which Horace gave. But I said I borrowed the word from the Italian. Vide Ariosto, Cant. 26.
Ma sì l'usbergo d'ambi era perfetto,
Che mai poter falsarlo in nessun canto.
Falsar cannot otherwise be turned, than by falsified; for his shield was falsed, is not English. I might indeed have contented myself with saying, his shield was pierced, and bored, and stuck with javelins, nec sufficit umbo ictibus. They, who will not admit a new word, may take the old; the matter is not worth dispute.