It was Pine's relation which received the greatest attention on the
continent, and that was chiefly concerned in describing his performances
in populating the island. It was therefore with only a mild surprise
that I read in one of those repulsively thorough studies which only a
German can make, a study made in 1668 of this very tract, "The Isle
of Pines," the assertion that Pines, masquerading as the name of the
discoverer and patriarch of the island, and accepted as the name of
the island itself, was only an anagram on the male organ of
generation--penis. On one of the German issues in the John Carter Brown
[39]Library this has also been noted by a contemporary hand.{1} Such an
interpretation reduces our tract to a screaming farce, but it closely
suits the general tone of other of Neville's writings, which are
redolent of the sensual license of the restoration. To this I would add
an emendation of my own. The name adopted by Neville was Henry Cornelius
van Sloetten. It suggests a somewhat forcible English word--slut--of
doubtful origin, although forms having some resemblance in sound and
sense occur in the Scandinavian languages.