speak next.

Everybody is aware of the deep emphasis which the Pagans laid upon
words and upon names, under this aspect of the ominous. The name of
several places was formally changed by the Roman government, solely
with a view to that contagion of evil which was thought to lurk in the
syllables, if taken significantly. Thus, the town of Maleventum, (Ill-
come, as one might render it,) had its name changed by the Romans to
Beneventum, (or Welcome.) _Epidamnum_ again, the Grecian Calais,
corresponding to the Roman Dover of Brundusium, was a name that would
have startled the stoutest-hearted Roman 'from his propriety.' Had he
suffered this name to escape him inadvertently, his spirits would have
forsaken him--he would have pined away under a certainty of misfortune,
like a poor Negro of Koromantyn who is the victim of Obi.[Footnote:
'_The victim of Obi._'--It seems worthy of notice, that this
magical fascination is generally called Obi, and the magicians Obeah
men, throughout Guinea, Negroland, &c.; whilst the Hebrew or Syriac
word for the rites of necromancy, was _Ob_ or _Obh_, at least
when ventriloquism was concerned.] As a Greek word, which it was, the
name imported no ill; but for a Roman to say _Ibo Epidamnum_, was
in effect saying, though in a hybrid dialect, half-Greek half-Roman, 'I
will go to ruin.' The name was therefore changed to Dyrrachium; a
substitution which quieted more anxieties in Roman hearts than the
erection of a light-house or the deepening of the harbor mouth. A case
equally strong, to take one out of many hundreds that have come down to
us, is reported by Livy. There was an officer in a Roman legion, at
some period of the Republic, who bore the name either of Atrius Umber
or Umbrius Ater: and this man being ordered on some expedition, the
soldiers refused to follow him. They did right. We remember that Mr.
Coleridge used facetiously to call the well-known sister of Dr. Aikin,