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Hobbes says "animadverte, quam sit ab improprietate verborum pronum hominibus prolabi in errores circa res," or "how prone men are to fall into errors about things, when they use improper expressions."

'Pooh," said I, "'Quid juvat errores mersa jam puppe fateri." Was it not good? you remember it in Claudian, eh, Pelham? Think of its being thrown away on those Latinless young lubbers! Have you seen any thing of Mr. Thornton lately?" "No," said I, "I've not, but I am determined to have that pleasure soon."

Not that his countrymen can be charged with being insensible of his excellencies, till other nations taught them to admire him; for, in 1718, he was chosen to succeed Le Mort in the professorship of chymistry; on which occasion he pronounced an oration, "De chemia errores suos expurgante," in which he treated that science with an elegance of style not often to be found in chymical writers, who seem generally to have affected, not only a barbarous, but unintelligible phrase, and to have, like the Pythagoreans of old, wrapt up their secrets in symbols and enigmatical expressions, either because they believed that mankind would reverence most what they least understood, or because they wrote not from benevolence, but vanity, and were desirous to be praised for their knowledge, though they could not prevail upon themselves to communicate it.

For language is the armoury of the human mind; and at once contains the trophies of its past, and the weapons of its future conquests. Animadverte, says Hobbes, quam sit ab improprietate verborum pronum hominihus prolabi in errores circa ipsas res! Egregie vero J. C. Scaliger, in Lib.

This is strikingly similar to Lord Bacon's "errores qui invaluerunt, quique in aeternum invalituri sunt, alii post alios, si mens sibi permittatur."

'Pooh," said I, "'Quid juvat errores mersa jam puppe fateri." Was it not good? you remember it in Claudian, eh, Pelham? Think of its being thrown away on those Latinless young lubbers! Have you seen any thing of Mr. Thornton lately?" "No," said I, "I've not, but I am determined to have that pleasure soon."