Note 407 — LOUIS XVIII. AND LOUIS PHILIPPE.

Phalange, flag, standard, writes M. le Pelletier. As far as I can discover anything, this statement appears to be entirely erroneous. The word “phalanx,” as connected with matters military, always signifies a body of men in military order. It may in the plural even stand indefinitely for armies. In the singular it is very confusing. It may stand for a party of twenty-eight men or eight thousand (Potter’s “Antiquities,” ii. 56). Danet says six thousand men. Gibbon introduces one of his constantly recurring slovenly phrases about it,—absurd in fact, but philosophic in form. He is comparing the legion with the phalanx (i. 22), and tells us, “It was soon discovered by reflection, as well as by the event,” that it could not contend with the legion. It is obvious here, that if it had been discovered by reflection it would never have been tried by the event. This somewhat justifies the sarcasm of Porson, that schoolboys ought to be set to translate Gibbon into English. As a pleasing variety, Smith sets the number when complete at about sixteen thousand men. One feels inclined to say that these classical guides are conveying us to that ditch, which is never far to seek, when the blind are leading the blind. Martinius, in his curious “Lex. Phil.,” cites Pliny to show that the Africans first fought the Egyptians fustius, with staves, which they called phalanges in the plural, or phalanx in the singular, so that it is an African word. ‎‏פלג‏‎, in Hebrew phalag, is a staff. Also there is a spider called phalangion; and as the pikes of the first five ranks in a phalanx were interlaced, they were somewhat like a web of staves. Many may regard all this as extremely useless; perhaps they will concede that it is curious; if so, I shall consider it to be useful. I have long found that whatever is very curious is useful. It sets the mind agreeably in movement, and often throws a new light on things that previously had no interest and seemed obscure. At any rate, we have now established that phalange is not to be rendered standard, but troops, army.