Note 184 — Chapter I · THE TREATMENT OF NATURE IN ENGLISH CLASSICAL POETRY
Reading edition
This constant use of Latin and Greek names for English peasants was frequently satirized. Dryden makes Limberham say to Brainsick, “But why, of all names, would you choose a Phyllis? There have been so many Phyllises in song I thought there was not another to be had for love or money.”—“Works,” VI, 62. Cf. Watts, “Meditation in a Grove”:
No Phyllis shall infect the air With her unhallow’d name.