(and perhaps somebody else) have happened to call it so. And here I must beg the reader's excuse, if I go a little out of the way to do right to Sir William Temple, in a case of the like nature. Mr Wotton tells him, with great plainness of speech, that he, of all men, ought not to have arraigned the modern ignorance in grammar, who puts Delphos for Delphi everywhere in his Essays. A capital mistake, and worthy to be chastised by the acute pen of Mr Wotton! But is he sure that putting Delphos for Delphi is an offence against grammar? I thought always that what was according to propriety and the received use of a tongue, could not be against grammar. It may indeed be against some general rule of grammar, but so wise a man as Mr Wotton is, should have known that grammar has not only general rules, but particular exceptions too; and that the common custom and usage of a tongue is capable of creating an exception, at any time, and is as good a rule as any in the grammar. Now Delphos for the Latin word Delphi is used by all the finest writers of our tongue, and best judges of it, particularly by Mr Waller twice in some of his last copies, which though they are worse poetry than
