Book-bot.com - Literary Blunders by Wheatley, Henry Benjamin, 1838-1917

Literary Blunders by Henry Benjamin Wheatley
page 20 of 211 (09%)

course this was pronounced St. _Fausts_,
and we at once have the two syllables.
The next form is in a deed of May 1360,
where it stands as ``Seyn Fastreslane.''
We have here, not a final _r_ as in the latest
form, but merely an intrusive trill. This
follows the rule by which thesaurus became
_treasure, Hebudas, Hebrides_, and _culpatus,
culprit_. After the great Fire of London,
the church was re-named St. Vedast (_alias_
Foster)--a form of the name which it
had never borne before, except in Latin
deeds as Vedastus.[1] More might be said

of the corruptions of names in the cases
of other saints, but these corruptions are
more the cause of blunders in others than
blunders in themselves. It is not often
that a new saint is evolved with such an
English name as Foster.

[1] See an article by the Author in _The Athenum_,
January 3rd, 1885, p. 15; and a paper by the
Rev. W. Sparrow Simpson in the _Jourral of
the British Archological Association_ (vol. xliii.,
p. 56).

The existence of the famous St. Vitus