nest zeal. There is no sarcastic person whose
life, if you scrutinise it closely, will not be found full of vices and
improprieties. And now, after this warning, philosophise as much as you
have a mind.

_Berg._ You may be quite at your ease on that score, Scipio. What I have
to remark is, that as I was the whole day at leisure--and leisure is the
mother of reflection--I conned over several of those Latin phrases I had
heard when I was with my masters at college, and wherewith it seemed to
me that I had somewhat improved my mind; and I determined to make use of
them as occasion should arise, as if I knew how to talk, but in a
different manner from that practised by some ignorant persons, who
interlard their conversation with Latin apophthegms, giving those who do
not understand them to believe that they are great Latinists, whereas
they can hardly decline a noun or conjugate a verb.

_Scip._ That is not so bad as what is done by some who really
understand Latin; some of whom are so absurd, that in talking with a
shoemaker or a tailor, they pour out Latin like water.

_Berg._ On the whole we may conclude, that he who talks Latin before
persons who do not understand it, and he who talks it, being himself
ignorant of it, are both equally to blame.

_Scip._ Another thing you may remark, which is that some persons who
know Latin are not the less asses for all that.

_Berg._ No doubt of it; and the reason is clear; for when in the time of
the Romans everybody spoke Latin as his mother tongue, that did not
hinder some among them from being boobies.

_Scip._ But to know when to keep silence in the mother tongue, and speak
in Latin, is a thing that needs discretion, brother Berganza.

_Berg._ True; for a foolish word may be spoken in Latin as well as in
the vulgar tongue; and I have seen silly literati, tedious pedants, and
babblers in the vernacular, who were enough to plague one to death with
their scraps of Latin.

_Scip._ No more of this: proceed to your philosophical remarks.

_Berg._ They are already delivered.

_Scip._ How so?

_Berg._ In those remarks on Latin and the vulgar tongue, which I began
and you finished.

_Scip._ Do you call railing philosophising? Sanctify the unhallowed
plague of evil speaking, Berganza, and give it any name you please, it
will, nevertheless entail upon us the name of cynics, which means dogs
of ill tongue. In God's name, hold your peace, and go on with your
story.

_Berg._ H