CHAPTER VII.OFFICERSHIP.

By the time of Charles the First, the national taste had gone a degree further. It becomes positively amusing to study the registers of this period. It had evidently become a point of respectability among certain classes of the community to select for their children the rarest names of Scripture. John, Nicholas, Bartholomew, Thomas, and Peter,though Scriptural, were tabooed; a stain rested on them, as having been in the Calendar during centuries of popish superstition. In fact, the Apostles were turned out for having kept bad company. Many seemed to have rested their claim to thorough knowledge of the Bible upon the rarity of the name they had discovered in its pages. Thus I find “Ebedmeleck Gastrell,” whose Christian name only occurs once in the Scriptures (Jer. xxxviii. 8). “Epaphroditus Houghton,” “Othniell Haggat,” “Apphia Scott,” “Tryphena Gode,” “Bezaliel Peachie,” are cases in point. If a child were styled by a new, quaint, unheard-of title, as a matter of course it was assumed to be from the Bible. From the appearance of such a name as “Michellaliell,” I fancy tricks of this kind were common.

A further stage of eccentricity was reached when it became fashionable to emphasize the doctrine of original sin by affixing to the new-born child a Scripture name of ill-repute. The reader can have no conception how far this was carried. In the street Dinahs and Absaloms walked hand-in-hand to school; Ananiases and Sapphiras grovelled in the dirty courts and alleys; and Cains took Abels to pluck flowers in the rural lanes and meadows, without thoughts of fratricide. Archbishop Leighton, son of a much persecuted Presbyterian minister, had a sister Sapphira. The acme of eccentricity was reached in the case ofMilcomGroat, whose Christian (!) name was “The abomination of the children of Ammon.” It may be seen in the State Papers (Domestic). I am furnishing all these names hap-hazard from my notebooks.In the dame’s school the twelve patriarchs could all have answered to their names through their little red-cheeked representatives who lined the wall, unless, maybe, Simeon or Reuben stood on a separate seat with the dunce’s cap on! But the strangest freak of all is still to be recorded. We have all heard of Praise-God Barebones. Hume, in his History of England, asserts that his brother bore the long name of “If-Christ-had-not-died-for-thee-thou-hadst-been-condemned Barebones.” What the historian adds to this I will not repeat, for fear of seeming irreverent. Many have supposed this to have been a case of mere exceptional eccentricity. Nothing of the kind. It was not an uncommon custom for a man or woman after conversion to reject with horror the pagan name of “Harry” or “Dick,” which their god-parents had imposed upon them, and be known henceforth as “Replenish,” or “Increase,” or “Abstinence,” or “Live-well.” Of course, if they married after this, they spared their children the necessity of any such alteration by furnishing them with personal appellations of this character at the outset.

The earliest specimens of this peculiar spirit will be found in the reign of Elizabeth—that is, within a score of years or so of the Reformation and the gift of an open English Bible; so we must not suppose it was wholly an institution of what we may term the Cromwellian period. It reached its climax then, nothing more. In the Elizabethan “Proceedings in Chancery” may be seen such names as Virtue Hunt, Temperance Dowlande,—Temperance was one of ourmost popular names for a hundred and fifty years,—Charitie Bowes, and Lamentation Chapman. Lamentation would easily be affixed to a child whose mother had died in childbirth. Ichabod has often been given for a like reason. On the contrary, “Comfort” would be readily seized upon under circumstances of Christian or parental joy. The other day I was in Tewkesbury Abbey, now undergoing restoration, and, as is my wont, I began ferreting for peculiar names. In a churchyard I instinctively walk like a dog with my nose to the ground. Almost immediately, I came across two “Comforts,”—“Comfort, wife of Abram Farren, died Aug. 24th, 1720,” and “Comfort Pearce, died Nov. 17th, 1715;” the latter was granddaughter of the former. Miss Holt, whose “Mistress Margery” and other sound and thoroughly well-written stories will have been read by most of my readers, told me not long ago that she had seen in the register of St. James’s, Piccadilly, the following entries:—“Repentance Tompson,” “Loving Bell,” “Obedience Clark,” and “Unity Thornton”; “Nazareth Rudde,” also, was contained in the same record. This reminds me of “Jerrico Segrave” in a Derbyshire record. In that county it was very possible for Bible place-names to be thus incorporated into personal nomenclature. Among the ruder peasantry it was a common custom,—a custom dating from the Reformation,—to have their child baptized by the first name the eye lighted on after the parent had let the family Bible fall open upon the table. A clergyman not long ago, asking in the Baptismal Service “What name?” received the whispered rejoinder,“Ramoth Gilead.” Naturally enough, he inquired,sotto voce, “A boy or a girl?” A curious instance of this general class is to be found in the case of Frewen, Archbishop of York, who died in 1664. He was son of a Puritan minister in Sussex; his Christian name was “Accepted,” and his younger brother was “Thankfull.” It is from this epoch that we must date the origin of some of our prettiest, if not now most popular, names for girls: “Grace,” “Faith,” “Hope,” “Charity,” “Truth,” and “Prudence.” All these have survived the era in which they, and a hundred longer and less simple terms, were introduced; and if they are now getting out of favour, it is only one more proof that the fashions in detail, as well as the fashions generally, of this world, undergo silent, it may be, but inevitable change.

We must not suppose, however, that there was no spirit of antagonism to this remarkable practice, so new in origin, and yet so deeply established. I have carefully avoided any reference to the disagreements that led to the execution of Charles the First, and the Commonwealth. If this era was socially vicious, it was also religiously hypocritical. Both sides had good and bad men in their midst. A poem written in 1660, styled a “Psalm of Mercy,” is an evident “skit” by some Royalist upon the new taste in nomenclature. It is too long for quotation, and though not actually ribald, is better left in its obscurity. It pokes fun at the following names:—Rachel, Abigaile, Faith, Charity, Pru (Prudence), Ruth, Temperance, Grace, Bathsheba, Clemence, Jude, Pris (Priscilla), Aquila, Mercy, Thank, Dorcas,Chloe, Phœbe. It is curious to note, that while none of these names could be found in an English register prior to 1560, in 1660, when this satirical ballad was indited, there was not one which was not more or less popular, not one of which I myself have not found several instances in contemporary records. We have only to add, that after the recital of all these names, the poet concludes with a couplet which we cannot insert here, but which indicates very clearly that the writer was not very much drawn to this new phase of feeling. However, if we are to thank the Roundheads for the introduction of many really pretty names,—names, too, awakening sweet Biblical and religious associations in our hearts,—we must not forget that it was owing to the antagonistic spirit of the Cavaliers that we are still in possession of not a few old names, which, though pagan in origin, are rendered dear by their antiquity and their relations to English life and character generations ere the Reformation was dreamt of. Above all, we must never forget, that whether the name be in the Bible or out of it, whether it be given at the font or even in the registrar’s office, it is the man that sanctifies the name, not the name the man. It was not their names that made Venn, and Simeon, and Wilberforce venerated; but Venn, and Simeon, and Wilberforce, by their earnest devotion and stable piety, made themselves so revered by Christian Englishmen that their names are still uttered with that hushed and bated breath that is the deepest demonstration of regard that human heart can express. Let us not then regret, that if by one band of men the treasuryhouse of the Scriptures was ransacked for a new vocabulary of nomenclature, to another band we owe the preservation from the death they were threatened with, of Ralph, Walter, Dick, Harry, Cecilia, Lucy, Beatrice, Julia, Robert, Humphry, and Edward. Again do you say, “But they are pagan!” Prythee, friend, will you say that because Latimer bore the pagan name of Hugh, he died “without hope,” as a dog dieth; or that she who permitted his body to be burned, because she bore the name of Mary, could assert with her nominal prototype that “All generations shall call me blessed”? Her name is written in blood; and “Bloody Mary” she will be styled from English lips, till the Reformation be branded as a mistake, and its heroes as fools.

I have laid stress,—nay, I have dwelt lingeringly,—on these now quaint and old-mannered names for a particular reason. How many of my readers there must be who, without realizing the causes, are conscious of the fact that the Christian names of our cousins across the Atlantic, and those of ourselves, are marked by a certain divergence. When the Pilgrim Fathers set forth from Plymouth and Bristol, they bore with them their Puritan cognomens; and there, in Virginia and all the east border of the great States, they are established nearly as firmly to-day as they were in England two hundred years ago. Take up an American story, and in the names of its heroines you can tell, not only their nationality, but the writer’s also. “Faith,” and “Hope,” and “Patience,” and “Grace” are still their favourite titles. Nor is this a mere accident. If we turn to Mr. Hottens’ listof emigrants between 1600 and 1700, we find such names to have been of everyday occurrence. In the same family we find such trios as “Love Brewster,” “Fear Brewster,” and “Patience Brewster” quitting our shores. We find a brother and sister registered as “Hopestill Foster” and “Patience Foster;” while such entries as “Perseverance Green,” “Desire Minter,” “Revolt Vincent,” “Joye Spark,” “Remember Allerton,” and “Remembrance Tibbott” greet one at every turn. In such titles as these—“Hope-still,” “Remember,” “Remembrance,” “Desire,” “Patience,” and “Perseverance”—our minds are inevitably thrown back to those days of religious persecution, while we seem to be bidding these travellers God-speed on their distant and uncertain journey from the pierhead as the good ship lifts her anchor; and we can detect in the heart of the emigrant that mingled tide of hope and fear, trust and regret, confidence in the future united with a fond and lingering looking back, which still abides unbanished,—in spite of occasional tall talk,—from the American’s heart. He is proud of his land, but he does not forget the old country. No man so proud of making a name for himself as he; and yet no man so proud of tracing his pedigree back to a name that has been already made for him generations ago on England’s soil! In the twofold title of “Hopestill” and “Remembrance” still lives all that speaks of reverence in America’s past and expectation for America’s future.

If it were necessary, we could easily show how the same thing has happened to the vocabularies of the two countries that has befallen the two nomenclatures.We smile when a Yankee says, “I guess,” “I calculate,” and “I reckon;” but when we read in the Epistle of St. Paul the sentence “I reckonthat the sufferings of this present time are not worthy to be compared with the glory which shall be revealed in us,” do we always reflect, as we might do, that our translators and revisers of 1611 were simply putting into the mouth of the apostle a phrase which was then colloquial English, but now survives, in all its familiarity, only in the United States, whither the Puritan Fathers had carried it? This comparison we might easily extend, but it is not our subject.

As for American baptismal nomenclature in general, it is all but entirely Biblical. The only book the refugee took with him was his English Bible. His piety was fed from its pages, his life was likened to its histories, his surroundings had the same cast of primeval simplicity; he discovered a resemblance between his own new life and that of the patriarchs, and it pleased him to stereotype the resemblance by the adoption of their names. From out that Book alone he named his offspring, and thus to this day,—such is the power of tradition,—“Brother Jonathan” and “Uncle Sam” are but representatives of a class of names which well-nigh engrosses every other. A single instance will suffice to show how this great mass of Biblical nomenclature arose. Charles Chauncy died in New England, 1671. He emigrated from Hertfordshire, where the family had been settled for centuries. His children were Isaac, Ichabod, Sarah, Barnabas, Elnathan, Nathaniel, and Israel. All these grew up and settled in New England.

It has been well said, that were it not for our English Bible the two languages of the United States and England would slowly but surely separate themselves into two distinct dialects, possibly tongues. Certainly it is to that book which Wycliffe,—whom we commemorated in 1877,—wrote into English, we owe the fact that in no respect is there a closer bond and deeper sympathy betwixt England and America than in that which concerns the nomenclature of the two countries. In what respect they differ I have shown. Whilewehave dropped some names that marked eccentricity, and restored some of the older and more pagan cognomens from the oblivion that seemed so certainly to await them,theyhave clung tenaciously to that more quaint and large class of names of Scriptural origin, which their forefathers of Puritan stock bore with them across the ocean in days when America was as yet a portion of the British dominions.

May the twofold offspring of one stock hold fast still, as in days of yore, to that One Name in the Bible which is above every name! Then shall the two great branches of the Anglo-Norman race continue to multiply and be strong, and all the continents of the world shall be blessed through their means.

Isetout with the intention of writing six chapters on the “London Directory;” and, lo! I have reached the mystic seven. The worst of it is, that at the present rate of progress I shall have to transgress the editorial licence by at least four more before I can possibly bring my remarks to a close, consistent with the demands of my subject. Nevertheless, the Editor has only to say the word, and I will wipe,—not my tearful eye, but my goose quill, and bid my courteous reader adieu!

The other day I met a friend, and he greeted me with the remark, “Awfully dry.” Thinking he referred to the weather—it was the end of June—and feeling decidedly warm, I assented cordially, when I discovered that the statement was intended to be a less polite than concise criticism upon one or two of my later instalments toThe Fireside, on the subjectthat heads these pages. My friend made several other remarks founded on the first, and went so far as to offer me some advice—a very dangerous thing, as everybody knows. It was to this effect: “Stick to your text.” What is my text? I asked, thinking to take him off his guard. “The London Directory,” he replied promptly.

Well, I must admit that in the last two papers I slightly wandered from my text. My excuse is this: baptismal names are in the London Directory as well as surnames; and the baptismal names of to-day are as different from the baptismal names of five hundred years ago as were the baptismal names of five hundred years ago from those in vogue five hundred years before that. This curious fact I wished to bring out and develop. At the same time I wanted to show that it was the English Bible that had caused the change. Whether I succeeded in so doing, I must leave to the reader to decide. At any rate, I can now turn, with such cheerfulness as my stern critic has left me, to the next class of English Surnames represented in the London Directory—that originated by Office, whether ecclesiastical or civil. I have got the Directory itself at my left elbow, not merely as a monitor to warn me, but also as a reference to support me. Looking to this mighty tome, then, for inspiration as well as illustration, I at once begin.

The Directory teems with relics of the feudal system. There is not a single office belonging to that formal and ceremonious age which is not commemorated within its pages. Whether it were servicewithin the baronial hall or tenure without, all was held by a retinue who thought no office too mean or servile for acceptance. The feudatory, in fact, could seemingly do nothing; everything was done for him. He could eat and drink, ’tis true, and he did both to the great admiration of all beholders; but he had an officer to carve his meat for him; another to change his plate; a third to crack jokes for him, to aid his digestion; a fourth to extend a bowl to wash his fingers; a fifth to hand him a napkin to wipe them; a sixth to hold his wine-cup for him; and a seventh to taste each fresh dish set before him, so that in case poison had been put in the food, his taster might drop down dead instead of himself. Why the baron hadn’t an officer to wipe his nose for him, I can’t say; it has always been a mystery to me. One thing, however, is certain. As he sat and ate and drank, he had a little crowd of officers who thought it only too high a distinction to perform duties so menial, that a scullion in the present day, if asked to undertake some of them, would probably reply, “Is thy servant a dog, that he should do this thing?” At any rate, he would give you a month’s notice, to a certainty.

That all these officerships existed, the Directory still shows; for I have no hesitation in saying that the finest and most trustworthy records of the feudal age are to be found, not in the British Museum in Great Russell Street, nor the Bodleian Library at Oxford, but in that great red-backed tome which lies on the shelf in every London warehouse. Imagine our going to these dry and prosaic emporiums ofmerchandise for an account of a long past state of life, which, with all its barbarism, is well-nigh the most poetical era of English history. I mentioned seven officers who tended the baron at his meals. Taking the Directory, I find twelve Carvers, two Sewers, eleven Napiers and Nappers, six Ewers, one hundred and twenty-five Pages, not to mention our various “Cuppages” (i.e.Cup-page), Smallpages, and Littlepages, six “Says,” and twenty-four “Sayers.” ’Tis true there are no “Fools” in the Directory, though there may be plenty out of it; but once it was a very common name indeed, and denoted theofficer, if I may use the term, whose duty it was to convulse the table with laughter by making the most ludicrous jokes he could invent, backing them up with all sorts of grimaces and contortions. He was a professed punster, too, and had free licence to make them at the expense even of his lord. Indeed, the fool could make a joke with impunity, which would have cost any other man his head. Of course he wore a fool’s-cap as the insignia of his office. The Napier, or Napper, set the napkins, once called “napes.” A curious and silly story has got abroad, that the Scotch Napiers got their surname from one Donald, whose prowess was so great in a certain battle, that the king said he had “na peer,” that is, no equal. His friends,—so the tale goes,—from henceforth styled him Donald Na-pier. The Scotch Napiers are, as Mr. Lower shows, of the house of Lennox, and owed their cognomen to the office I have described, held by their ancestors in the royal household. The Ewer carried the ewer of water infront of the Napier; and as they had no forks in those days, and used their left hand in a manner which would be now considered the reverse of polite, no wonder that between every course thenapierandewerwould be busy indeed. Even the carver had no fork, and had to use his fingers very freely with the joints. In the “Boke of Kervynge,” an old manual of etiquette for young squires, there is a strict order to this effect:—“Sett never on fyshe, flesche, beest, nor fowle, more than two fyngers and a thumbe”! The young squire had early to learn this accomplishment; and therefore Chaucer, describing his Squire, made a point of saying in his favour,—

“Courteous he was, lowly and servisable,And carf before his fader at the table.”

The Sewer brought in the viands; we still use the root in such compounds asen-sueandpur-sue. Asewewas any cooked dish or course of meat. Hence Chaucer, describing the rich feasts of Cambuscan, says, time would fail him to tell—

“Of their strange sewes.”

The Queen’s household still boasts, I believe, its six Gentlemen Sewers. The “Page,” of course, was a familiar spectacle, for he was here, there, and everywhere, at the beck and call of his lord. No wonder, therefore, he has so many representatives in our Directory. It is said that an elderly bachelor, bearing this name, became deeply attached to a young lady. Being bashful by nature, and unacquainted with the arts of courtship, he hung about the damselfor a long time, seeking vainly for courage and opportunity to declare the state of his mind. The golden chance came at last. At a party one night the fair lady dropped her glove. He rushed to pick it up, and presenting it to her, said,—

“If from that glove you take the letter ‘G,’Then glove is love, and that I give to thee.”

She at once responded,—

“If you from Page should take the letter ‘P,’Then Page is age,—and that won’t do for me.”

I believe he was taken ill and went home.

Knight, like Squire and Bachelor,—all relics of feudal days,—is largely represented in London. A would-be reader of the poets, it is said, went into a shop and asked to see a copy of “Young Knight’s Thoughts.” He was somewhat astonished to find that “Young” was not an adjective, but a surname. This reminds one of Southey’s story of the lady who, seeing a book advertised bearing the title “An Essay on Burns,” ordered a copy, thinking it treated of scalds, and might contain some remedies. Say, Sayer, Guster, and Taster—the last alone being now obsolete—all refer to the office mentioned above; the duty of the first bearers of these several names being to hazard their own lives for the preservation of their masters’. In a word, they stood behind their lord’s chair, and as every dish of meat or cup of wine was brought in, theyassayedit (i.e., they took the first bite or sup); so that if either had been “drugged” by some conspirator in the kitchen, the baron might escape. It is right to add, to prevent misconception,that in some cases our Sayers owe their origin, like “Tester,” to another officership—that of examining money, to see whether it was full weight and of genuine metal. There are four or five “Testers” in the London Directory.

We may close this list with the mention of such surnames as Spencer or “Spenser”; Marshall, Chamberlain or Chamberlin, Warder, and Butler. All these represented important officerships.

We may here take the opportunity of referring to the condition of the lower classes. In the country there was no middle class, such as we know by the term, excepting those who are represented in the Directory under the sobriquet of Yeoman, Yeomans, and Yeomanson. The peasantry were oftentimes little more than goods and chattels of their masters. We must not exaggerate, however, for although there are sixty-four “Bonds” in the London Directory, who represent such old entries as “William le Bonde,” the progenitors of this name were in no such abject servitude as is now understood by the word. That they were hard worked there can be no doubt:

“Of alle men in londeMost toileth the bonde,”—

and how much freedom was valued may be guessed from the number of Franks, Franklins, Frees, Freebodys, Freemans, Freeds, and Freeborns, in the big tome we are discussing. We find even Free-wife and Free-woman in the older registers, but they are now obsolete—in the Directory, I mean, not in actual life, for very often the wife not merely “rules her house,”but her husband too, and a good thing for him if he only knew it! There are fifty-three “Frys” to be added to this list, the old form of “free.” How curious that the lady who so distinguished herself in toiling for the abolition of slavery should have borne the name of Elizabeth Fry! Who strove more earnestly to make the bond free than she? Truly Tom Hood meant jest for earnest when he wrote his ode to Dr. Kitchener:—

“What baron, or squire, or knight of the shireLives half so well as a holy Fry-er?In doing well thou must be reckonedThe first—and Mrs. Fry the second.”

Again he says in jest and rhyme, with a sly hit in the last line at her Quaker garments:—

“I like you, Mrs. Fry! I like your name!It speaks the very warmth you feel in pressingIn daily act round Charity’s great flame—I like the crisp Browne way you have of dressing.”

If Hood had known the meaning of Mrs. Fry’s name, he could have made a better play than this upon it. The forms in the old rolls are Walter le Frie, or Roger le Frye.

The country police were represented by various terms, and as I turn the page of my book of modern reference I am reminded of them all. The Hayward guarded the fences; the Forester or Forster or Foster, the Woodward, the Parker, the Warrener or Warner, the Woodreeve, now found as Woodruff or Woodroff, all protected the covers wherein the beasts of the chase found harbourage. The Pinder, orPounder, was engaged in locking up strayed cattle. Every village had its pound, and no doubt in a day when hedges and dikes and fences were less familiar sights than now, his office would be an important one.

It may be asked, Have we any relic in our Directories of any office in the large towns answering to our modern policeman, or “peeler,” as our streetgaminsso disrespectfully style him? We answer in the affirmative. Our somewhat common surname of Catchpoll, Catchpole, Catchpool, and Catchpoole are his representatives. They were so called because, as they walked their beat, they carried a somewhat formidable weapon, very like a pitchfork, the two prongs of which slipped round the neck, and formed a steel collar. The officer then had the criminal entirely at his mercy, and could either drag him, or shove him by the pole attached, which was from six to seven feet, in length. He was called a Catchpoll, because hecaughthis victim by the head orpoll. We still talk of a poll-tax, or “going to the poll,” showing how familiar the word was in those days. The Malvern Dreamer, in his poem entitled “The Vision of Piers Plowman,” says of the two thieves crucified with our Saviour, that,—

“A cachepol cam forth,And cracked both their legges.”

Another form, Catcherell, lingered on for a time in our nomenclature, but it is now gone, unless Cattrall be but a corruption. An old sermon of the fourteenth century speaks of the “devil and his angels” as the “devil and his cachereles”! Our “Waites” and“Waits” represent the night watchmen. As they both sounded the watches and gave the alarm with a trumpet or horn, it came to pass that any band of night serenaders acquired the name. We are all familiar with the Christmas “waits”! I see there are two “Wakemans” in the Directory. The wakeman was the North English form of “watchman,” just as kirk is North English for church, or dike for ditch, or thack for thatch. Thus, Wycliffe translates Mark xii. 37, “Forsooth, that that I say to you, I say to all, Wake ye,” where our modern translators have “Watch.” Strangely enough, in Psalm cxxvii. 1 they have employed both forms. “The watchman waketh but in vain,” should have been either “The wakeman waketh but in vain,” or “The watchman watcheth but in vain.” As it stands it is incongruous, for it gives the modern reader the idea that the watchman had been asleep, implying that he had been negligent, which, of course, is not in the original. When we remember, as I have shown, that “wake” and “watch” were but the same word with two pronunciations, one North English and the other South English, the difficulty is explained.[107]A northcountryman, if he wants to say that his neighbour is a shrewd fellow, says, “Eh, but he’s a wak’ un.” I don’t know whether a Lancashireman or a Yorkshireman is the most “wak’;” but an old saying gives the preference to the County Palatine. If a Lancashireman wish to be ahead of a Yorkshireman, it says, he must be up at two o’clock in the morning; but if a Yorkshireman wish to be ahead of a Lancashireman, he mustn’t go to bed at all. We may surmise that a Lancashireman originated the saying. Both “Wake” and “Sleep” are in the London Directory. Brook, in his “History of the Puritans,” relates a story concerning these two names. It seems, by a curious coincidence, that Isaac Wake was University Orator at Oxford, in 1607, Dr. Sleep being a well-known Cambridge preacher at the same time. James the First, who not merely liked his joke, but was fond of listening to sermons,—both characteristic of a Scotchman,—used to say, “he always feltinclinedto Wake when he heard Sleep, and to Sleep when he heard Wake”—i.e., he could not decide on the relative merits of the two. Wake and Sleep will both be nicknames—the ancestor of the one doubtless being a sharp shrewd fellow; the progenitor of the other, I daresay, being thought somewhat dull and stupid by his neighbours.

Speaking about “Sleep” and “Wake” reminds us of a name which has been a puzzle to many—that of “Gotobed.” The last time I was in the metropolis, I saw it over a door in Great Portland Street. The name has acquired additional interest since Mr. Trollope introduced it in one of his most able stories,“The American Senator.” One of our humorous poets had already played upon it in the lines,—

“Mr. Barker’s as mute as a fish in the sea,Mr. Miles never moves on a journey,Mr. Gotobed sits up till half after three,Mr. Makepeace was bred an attorney.”

It is just possible it is a nickname, for it occurs in registers as Gotobedde since the days of Elizabeth. Besides, there is a like nickname in the Hundred Rolls in the case of “Serl Gotokirk,” a sobriquet given to the owner on account of his regular and frequent attendance at worship. Nevertheless, I believe it to be a baptismal surname. I doubt not it is a mere corruption of Godbert, once a favourite child’s name. When I add that I find it five hundred years ago entered as “Godeberd,” a little later as “Gotebedde,” and more recently “Gotobedd,” I think the question may be looked upon as settled.

But I am falling into a snare. Methinks I hear my stern critic saying, “What has Gotobed to do with official surnames?—stick, Sir, to your text.” Well, the connection does certainly seem somewhat vague; but Wakeman was official, and it led me to Wake, and from Wake it was not very odd that I should pitch upon Sleep, and after all you can never sleep comfortably unless yougo to bed. Still, to soothe my friend, I will hark back, and conclude this chapter by a reference to a few ecclesiastic surnames.

’Tis true that Henry the Eighth and others demolished our abbeys, monkeries—as Latimer styles them—priories, and other Romish institutions that had become objectionable to English morals. But onething they could not do—uproot them from our registers. In the London Directory, if nomenclature goes for anything, they never flourished so vigorously as in the reign of Protestant Victoria! Apart from Westminster Abbey, there are at least five Abbeys in other quarters of the Metropolis, while no less than seventy-three Abbots reside in the same neighbourhood. Nor is this all. There are still left in London over fifty “Priors,” “Pryers,” and “Pryors,” over twenty “Fryers,” over thirty “Monks,” and nearly forty “Nunns.” Talk of the Papal aggression! Why, Mr. Newdegate should call the attention of the House of Commons, and through them that of the whole country, to the fact immediately. It is awful to contemplate what is thus going on under our very noses. It was only the other day that a Nunn appeared in a small house out of the Strandnot more than a day old, if the register of births be correct. Talk of boy-bishops, this is simply intolerable!

It is almost as bad when we turn to names that are less Romishly suggestive. How can it be consistent with his more orthodox duties, for an Archdeacon to be a furniture-broker, a Dean to be a rag and bottle merchant, or a Bishop to be a tobacco and snuff manufacturer! If my stern critic doubts my word, I can only refer him to the London Directory. There, sir, I’m sticking to my text this time, surely! I know a “Priest,” too, who keeps a chandler’s shop Marylebone way, and a “Deacon” who employs his leisure hours in the delightful occupation of chimney-sweeping; he resides in the vicinity of Edgeware Road. Not that I blame them; for what better canyou expect from either Priests or Deacons, so long as Bishops, Deans, and Archdeacons are guilty of such vagaries as I have stated?

There was a time,—now a long while ago,—when two personages contended for the honours of the Papal chair. There are no less than thirty-six Popes in London at this present moment; one is a greengrocer, by the way. I have not heard of their quarrelling; and so far, at least, this must be considered satisfactory. A good deal of blood was shed over the rival claims of the first two. When James the First came on a visit to Sir Thomas Pope, near Oxford, the Knight’s little daughter was introduced to his Majesty with these lines,—

“See! this little mistress hereDid never sit in Peter’s chair,Neither a triple crown did wear,And yet she is a Pope!“No benefice she ever sold,Nor did dispense with sin for gold;She hardly is a fortnight old,And yet she is a Pope!“A female Pope, you’ll say, ‘a second Joan?’No, sure, she is PopeInnocent, or none.”

“See! this little mistress hereDid never sit in Peter’s chair,Neither a triple crown did wear,And yet she is a Pope!

“No benefice she ever sold,Nor did dispense with sin for gold;She hardly is a fortnight old,And yet she is a Pope!

“A female Pope, you’ll say, ‘a second Joan?’No, sure, she is PopeInnocent, or none.”

An epigram, or a bit of wit, always pleased James the First, who was no mean punster himself; and no doubt this little entertainment at the entrance of the knight’s mansion helped materially to make his Majesty enjoy the hospitalities lavished upon him within.

One name I have never yet seen in the London Directory, which occurs in the old parliamentarywrits—that of “Hugh Holy-water-clerk.” He dwelt at Lincoln, and was doubtless connected with the cathedral body. But the old “Paternoster” still exists hale and hearty, as anybody may see who will take the trouble to inspect the big book of reference which gives title to my pages. How many thousands there are who daily pass Paternoster Row, and never reflect that it derived its name from the fact that several tradesmen who strung beads dwelt there. They were called “Paternosters,” and found ample occupation and profit, no doubt, in selling their religious ware to the people as they entered the old cathedral to patter aves. That they bore this name Mr. Riley has shown in his “Memorials of London,” wherein not merely is “William le Paternoster” mentioned as dwelling there, but a Robert Ornel is described as following the trade of “paternoster.” What a history there is conveyed in such a registered name as “Sarah Paternoster, fishmonger, 336, Hackney Road”! For centuries, as the name has passed on from one generation to another, there has been handed down with it a memorial of a time which can never return,—at least, I believe it can never return,—a time when our more superstitious forefathers and foremothers thought they could win the favour of Heaven and the grace of God by a glib and unmeaning reiteration of a prayer carefully and solemnly framed by Christ Himself to express and comprehend all the needs of the human heart. It is neither the length of our prayers nor the number of our invocations that will save us. It is the peculiarity of the Gospel narrative, that those who received benefit at Christ’s hands were they whouttered very short prayers; but then they knew what were asking for, and from whom they were making request. Why, if grace depended on thequantityof prayer, then we could reduce the holiness of believers to a mere arithmetical ratio, and by the amount of their petitions demonstrate to so many fractions how much more saintly one Christian was than another.

But I had better stop, or my reader will think I am preaching a sermon. Wouldn’t my stern critic come down heavily on me then? And I should not know what to say in self-defence!

Nothingwould be easier than to occupy a half-dozen chapters with a relation of the mode in which our forefathers led their lives. It is one peculiarity of nomenclature, that it reaches into every nook and crevice of English customs. What our ancestors specially favoured in the way of meat and drink, is set down with the utmost particularity in the London Directory of to-day, while, on the other hand, it is by the absence of certain names therein that we can form a safe judgment of what delicacies they lacked. No one would expect to see the potato commemorated in the Directory, for the simple reason that it was introduced into England after surnames had become established on a solid basis. There are no “Tatermans” or “Taterers.” But such names as Appletree, Appleyard, Plumtree, Pearman, and Peascod, exist. Why? Because apples, pears, plums, and peas,have been familiar to Englishmen for a dozen centuries. “Photographer” is not in the Directory for the same reason, but “Limner” is, the old “illuminator.” “Cabman” is also conspicuous by its absence, but “Carman” and “Wagner” (i.e.Wagoner) exist. Had tea, or umbrellas, or broughams, or balloons, or carpets, or potatoes, or croquet balls, or telegraph wires, or tinned meats, or steam engines, or churchwarden pipes, or Indian pickles, been introduced about five hundred years ago, every one of these would have left its mark on our personal nomenclature. Each would have found itself commemorated in our directories as well as our dictionaries. It is true the railway engine might seem to have been referred to in such fourteenth-century registrations as Richard le Engineur or William le Genour, but these men only wielded the great battering-rams, or catapults, or engines for hurling stones. Very destructive they were, of course, and so important a profession that no wonder there are thirteen “Jenners” in the London Directory alone. Sir William Jenner can satisfy himself with the reflection that if his progenitor was distinguished for the number of England’s adversaries he placedhors de combat, he and his father have been equally remarkable for the number of lives they have saved.

Let us spend a few moments in a consideration of this great matter of eating and drinking. And we will begin with drinking first. It is curious how easily misled we might be by the corruptions that have taken place in our nomenclature. The following surnames are in the London Directory (1870): Brandy,Sherry, Gin, Port, Beer, Porter, Stout, Claret, Portwine, Tee, and Coffee. Not one of these is what it seems to be. Not one of these has anything to do with the beverage each severally represents. “Portwine” is a mere modernisation of “Potewyne,” which in the fourteenth century denoted the Poict tevine settler in England. “Claret” was the pet name of “Clare.” “Stout” is of the nickname class, “Porter” occupative, and “Port” is found originally as “Charles le Port,” or “Oliver le Port,” showing that it was a sobriquet having reference to the portly bearing of the progenitor. Tennyson speaks of

“A modern gentlemanOf stateliest port.”

It is the same with “Aleman.” This has no connection with the public-house, but like “Almaine” and “D’Almaine” represents the old German trader. The word was once in most familiar use. Coverdale’s exposition of the twenty-fifth Psalm has on the title page, “Translated out of hye Almayne (High Dutch) in to Englyshe, by Myles Coverdale, 1537.” No one will require me to prove that James Tee and Peter Coffee do not represent our modern and favoured national breakfast beverages. At least the first, if he did, must have sprung from some “heathen Chinee,” who has immigrated to our shores. Such an elucidation, however, would neither satisfy myself, my reader, nor James Tee himself, I imagine.

But we have quite sufficient relics of the drinking propensities of the English people in bygone days without seeking for them in their corrupted forms.“Inman” and “Taverner” both represent the old keeper of houses of entertainment.Tavernis going out of fashion:Public-houseis a modern term. Porson, the great Greek scholar, was unhappily given to drink; but drunk or sober he had ever a Greek or Latin quotation at the tip of his tongue. Reeling in the streets of Cambridge, he one day tumbled down a flight of steps into a cellar-tavern. As they picked him up, he was heard to mutter,

“Facilis est descensus t-averni.”

Our Church of England temperance lecturers could not take a better text than this clever pun; for, unlike most puns, it contains a most admonitory truth. An old tavern-sign in Cheshire, in the last century, bore the following inscription:

“Goodbearsold here, our ownbruin.”

This in the days of bear-baiting, for which Cheshire was famous, would be very misleading to those of the country bumpkins who could read. Brewer and Brewster need no explanation. Malter and Malster both exist, but I do not see them in the London Directory. There is Malthouse, however, and that is sometimes found as “Malthus”; just as loft-house, and kirk-house, and bake-house or back-house have become Loftus, Kirkus, and Bacchus. Viner and Vinter also stand in no fear of being misunderstood; but Tunman, Tonman, Tunner, and Tonner, who casked and bottled the wine that came from the Continent, would be less likely to be recognised. In the “Confessio Amantis” it is said of Jupiter that he

“Hath in his cellar, as men say,Twotownèsfull of love-drink,”—

where we must not suppose that the Thunderer had so capacious a cellar that it would contain all the liquor that two whole towns might possess, but that he had twotunsor barrels of love potions. In fact, “tun” was the universal term in use then, thoughbarrelorcaskhas superseded it in common parlance. We still talk of “tunnels” or “tun-dishes,” the vessels used for transferring wine from barrel to bottle. “Beer-brewer” was once a familiar surname, but it has become obsolete. We all remember the old couplet—

“Hops, Reformation, baize, and beer,Came into England all in one year.”

To make the bitter taste, wormwood had been the chief ingredient in earlier days.

While on this subject, it is worth while inquiring whether or no we possess in our directories any record of the drinking propensities of our forefathers. That they were ever great “skinkers” everybody knows who has studied the past with any degree of care. What the Water-poet said somewhat coarsely of one may well be said of the many:—

“Untill hee falls asleepe,He skinks and drinkes;And then like to a bore,He winkes and stinkes.”

Even the “Friar,” according to Chaucer,

“strong was as a champioun,And knew wel the tavernes in every toun,And every hosteler and gay tapstere,Better than a lazar or a beggere.”

In spite of these acknowledged facts, however, I am happy to say there is not a single “Drunkard” in the London Directory. Nevertheless, in our older registers the tale is not so assuring. There has been a tendency during the last two hundred years to shuffle off certain objectionable names, which our earlier forefathers did not seem to be ashamed of. Who of my readers would like to have been officially registered as “Maurice Druncard,” or “Jakes Drynk-ale,” or worse still, “Geoffrey Dringke-dregges”? Who of my readers would like to sign himself in a marriage record as “Robert le Sot,” or as “Thomas Sour-ale”? Even “John Swete-ale” would scarcely have relished the sobriquet if he had lived in this more punctilious age of ours. Where could the young lady be found who would forego the charms of spinsterhood to be wedded to an “Arnold Scutel-mouth”—(what a capacious mouth it must have been!) “Alice Gude-ale-house” may have been a thoroughly honest and respectable landlady, but I don’t think she would have said “no,” if some smart and worthy younker had offered her the refusal of his name.

Every one of these entries I have myself copied from authentic registers. Curious, and yet not curious, is it that not one of them has survived. So far as the Directory shows, we are the soberest and most temperate nation on the face of the earth. Thus do we throw a mantle over our great national vice. Even when we cannot get rid of the fact, we manage to smooth it over with a sesquipedalian gloss.A woman in the middle and higher ranks never gets drunk now-a-days. She is a suffering martyr to dipsomania! How thankful we should be for a Bible that says “Be not drunk.”

Who was the first English teetotaler? If we could find him, I suspect our temperance friends would erect a monument to him. There are seven “Drinkwaters” in the Metropolitan register; and I am glad to say that Camden’s statement is wrong—it was only a guess—that Drinkwater is a corruption of “Derwentwater.” In the first place it is an impossible corruption; for the corruptive changes that pass over words and names are not accidental, but follow fixed rules, so to say. In the second place, I have been able to discover the name in its present guise up to the very time when hereditary surnames were established. “John Drinkwater” occurs in the Hundred Rolls, and “Richard Drynkwatere” in the Parliamentary Writs.[120]No wonder their posterity has survived, no wonder their name endures, for they can boast that in their sobriquet lies the record of the first English temperance movement. In a word, Mr. Drinkwater number one must have been the forerunner of total abstinence. None of his neighbours could have pointed to him as a man who habitually, or occasionally upon days of festival, “got tight”; his name, whereby they had nicknamed him, was in itself a safeguard. His very title pledged him to the principles it professed. No, he never “got tight,” or if he did, like a good sailing craft,he waswatertight. Some day I hope there will be a monument erected to “Drinkwater Number One.” It might be in the shape of a drinking fountain. What a heap of people there are buried in state in Westminster Abbey who ought to give place to “Drinkwater Number One”! But, alas! we don’t all get our deserts.

But enough of this. We have reminiscences in our directories of meat as well as drink. Chaucer, speaking of the “Franklein,” says,—

“Withoute bake mete never was his house,Of fish, and flesh, and that so plenteous,It snowèd in his hous of mete and drink,Of allè deintiès that men coud thinke.* * * * *Wo was his cook, but if his saucè werePoignant and sharpe, and redy all his gear.”

“Withoute bake mete never was his house,Of fish, and flesh, and that so plenteous,It snowèd in his hous of mete and drink,Of allè deintiès that men coud thinke.

* * * * *

Wo was his cook, but if his saucè werePoignant and sharpe, and redy all his gear.”

This short and piquant description is important because of the language used. We still use the word flesh in the alliterative phrase, “fish, flesh, and fowl;” but we should never ask for a “pound of flesh” in a butcher’s shop now, any more than we should talk of the importation of “American flesh.” We should say “meat.” The distinction, however, is preserved in this account, and we are reminded that before the Norman “Butcher” or “Boucher,” and French “Labouchere” came in, the seller of flesh-meat was called a “Fleshmonger” or “Flesher.” So late as 1528, William Fleshmonger, D.C.L., was Dean of Chichester. I fear the name is now obsolete. Our “Fleshers” still exist, but most of them have become absorbed in “Fletcher,” which represented the tradeof feathering arrows: we still employ the word “fledge.” The Bowyers and Fletchers and Arrowsmiths always marched abreast in the old trades’ processions of London, or York, or Norwich. Harking back to Fletcher, however, I may add, that in Scotland a butcher is still a flesher.

So far for the butcher. But the old rhyme speaks of—

“The butcher, the baker,The candlestick-maker.”

We next turn, therefore, to the bread and biscuit department. We have all heard how that foolish and imprudent

“Miss Baxter,Refused a man before he axed her,”

but few of us, possibly, are aware that “Baker” and “Baxter” and “Bagster,” all represent the same occupation, and that Baxter is only the old “bakester,” the feminine of Baker, just as Webster is the feminine of Webber, or Brewster of Brewer, or Blaxter (i.e.“Bleachster”) of Bleacher, or Tapster of Tapper.[122]Langland, in his poem entitled “The Vision of Piers Plowman,” speaks of

“Baksteres and brewesteres,And bochiers manye.”

It will not be irreverent to note the coincidence, that no firm in England have more closely associated their name with the printing of the Bible, “The Bread of Life,” than the Bagsters. It reminds us of that which was no accidental coincidence at all—namely, that Christ Himself, “that true Bread which came down from Heaven,” appeared first at Bethlehem,which literally means “house of bread,”i.e.“bread-shop,” or “bake-house.” “Bacchus,” as already noted, is a corruption of “bake-house,” while our Bullingers, Ballingers, Bollengers, and Furners, and “Pesters,” represent the Norman-French bakers. Our “Cokes” and “Cooks” represent the old public pie-shop, as well as the private cuisine, and this explains the large number of the fraternity immortalised in our directories. An old poem speaks of

“Drovers, cokes, and poulters,Yermongers, pybakers, and waferers.”

There has ever been a great race in this matter between our “Bakers” and “Cooks” or “Cookes.” Nearly thirty years ago Mr. Lowe, in his Tables of Births, Deaths, and Marriages, gave the following analysis for one year in England and Wales:—

Births.

Deaths.

Marriages.

Baker

1033

839

513

Cook

910

742

483

In the London Directory for 1871, there appeared 277 Bakers, 56 Baxters, and 2 Bagsters, as against 194 Cooks, 89 Cookes, 1 Coke, 2 Cookmans, and 9 Cooksons. This preserves the same proportion.

In the couplet quoted above occurs the trade name of “Waferer.” This may possibly sound an obsoletism to the reader. But if as a distinct occupation the making of bread wafers is gone, or has fallen into the hands of Messrs. Peek, Frean & Co., and other of our biscuit manufacturers, it has left many memorials behind. Our “Wafers” have fossilised its storyin the Directory, and even in our Authorized Version of the Bible (Lev. ii. 4). I have known one or two sturdy Protestants who have objected to the translation: “And if thou bring an oblation of a meat offering baken in the oven, it shall be unleavened cakes of fine flour mingled with oil, or unleavenedwafersanointed with oil.” There can be no doubt this is one more relic of Papal days in England. I have seen an old will of the thirteenth century, in which the then Archbishop of York made a small bequest to two “waferers,” who for many years had honestly plied their trade of selling wafers at the Minster gate. Not that the “waferer” confined himself to these. The author of Piers Plowman, not to mention Chaucer himself, puts him among certain disreputable street hawkers, who sold small spiced cakes; but then we must remember that the “Malvern Dreamer” wrote his poem against the lewdness of the priesthood—in fact, he was a trumpeter of the Reformation to come—and he would not object to set down the humblest servitor of the papal establishment, even a waferer, in as low a scale as he could. It is this that to my mind makes the history of English surnames so interesting. If we visit Pompeii we see in the streets and chambers that have been cleared of débris the very accidents of life and thought well-nigh 2000 years ago. We have but to clear away the little corruptions of spelling or pronunciation which have befallen these old-fashioned names, and spell-bound we are gazing into the life—the every-day religious and social life—of our English forefathers four hundred years ago. The antiquaryand the philologist alike may take up the London Directory with reverence, for therein lies a fund of information to his hand, which it might occupy months of pain and trouble otherwise to accumulate.

Having dealt with “the butcher” and “the baker,” there is yet the “candlestick-maker” to be considered. Our “Chandlers” and “Candlers” explain themselves. Our “Turners” turned out all manner of wooden gear, and doubtless candlesticks were amongst them. There are plenty of “Bowlers” in the Directory, men who made bowls or dishes of wood. The twenty-four “Spooners”[126]set down in the same record, fashioned spoons. Forks being a modern invention, there are no “Forkers”; but “Cutler” abounds on every side in the metropolis, not to mention the “Cutlers’ Alms-houses,” and the “Cutlers’ Hall.” “Ironmonger” also is well represented. Those who manufactured crocks—that is, any glazed vessel of earthenware (whence our modern term “crockery”)—were called “Crockers,” or “Crokers.” There are over thirty Crockers in the Directory, and six Crokers. A hundred “Potters” figure in the same list.

Some reader may inquire, “Have we any relics ofthe medical practitioner in the Directory? Was there any one who was professionally employed to see children through the measles, to extract an obnoxious tooth, to lay a plaister, to open a vein, to mix a potion, or to generally repair a debilitated system?” The London Directory replies unhesitatingly in the affirmative; and yet look out Doctor, or Surgeon, or Physician, and all are conspicuous by their absence: although, to do the last justice, he has bequeathed us four Physicks. The reason of this is simple. These are new terms. The old practitioner went generally by the name of “Leech.” There are forty-seven Leaches, one Leachman, and eleven Leeches in the Directory. Bleeding with leeches was evidently no unfamiliar spectacle in old days, especially when we recall that our forefathers were wont to be very energetic with the knife and fork—or spoon, I should say, for they had no forks. “Chemist,” too, is a new sobriquet,—therefore he is unrepresented; but there is one “Pothecary,” and Potticary is fairly common in other parts of England. As for the Barber, the surgeon and dentist of former times, no wonder there is a whole column of his descendants. His custom was to hang a basin at the end of his pole, with a string of teeth, the longer the better, to show what a roaring trade he drove,—for he could not advertise his business in the newspaper as people do in these remarkable days. In the window were ranged cups or goblets with a few leeches in. These

“Did well his threefold trade explain,Who shaved, drew teeth, and breathed a vein.”

In the latter decades of last century there was a celebrated surgeon in Manchester of the name of “Killer,” which is a corruption of “Kilner,” just as Miller and Milner are identical. But if this was an unfortunate name for a surgeon, what shall we say of “Kilmister” and “Kilmaster,” which may be found in and about the county of Gloucester! How bloodthirsty they look!—and yet the truer form Kilminster, in the London Directory, strips them, by the addition of but one letter, of their terrors, and shows them to be of local origin. In one of the earliest metropolitan directories appears a Mr. Toothaker! It was not an uncommon name, for in 1635 there embarked in theHopewellfor New England, Roger Toothaker and Margaret Toothaker! I do not think the name to be of German origin, as Mr. Lower supposes, but one of those local English surnames ending in “acre,” like Whittaker or Oldacre. The sobriquet, however, reads oddly enough, and looks as if the services of the barber were much required.

Turning to dress for a moment, we may notice that there are nearly 300 Walkers in the London Directory, almost 100 Tuckers, 80 Fullers, and 20 Tozers. All were concerned once with the combing, fulling, dyeing, and thickening of woollen goods. In Piers Plowman mention is made of “fulling under foot.” This refers to the practice oftreadingthe cloth, before machinery was introduced. He who did this was awalker. Wycliffe, speaking of Christ’s transfiguration, describes Christ’s dress as shining, so as “no fullers or walkers of cloth” could whiten them. The “tozer” or “toser,” or “touser,”toused or teased the fabric, so as to raise a nap on it. We talk ofteasingnow in the sense of worrying people with attentions. This is the secondary meaning that has grown upon the other. “Tozer” and “Toser” are the favourite spellings of this occupation in the Directory. We are still fond of calling a pugnacious dog “Towser.”Tuckerwas a Flemish introduced term for a “dyer.” Many of the words connected with the manufacture of cloth came in with the Flemish artisans.

I will only mention one article of dress, and conclude. There is no “Cobler,” or “Cobbler,” in the Directory, but there used to be. As a mere patchwork business it has got into disrepute; so it has been got rid of by its owners. Christopher Shoomaker was burnt at Newbury during the days of persecution, and Foxe tells his story in his customary quaint fashion; but it has ever been a rare name in England, though common enough in Germany as Schumacher, or Schumann. The last form will be familiar to all musicians. Camden, in a list of occupations, inserts “Chaucer,” appending by way of definition, “id est, Hosier.” The chaucer or hosier of those days fitted to the leg from the knee downwards the strong leather legging. This was called a chaussure. Chaucer is obsolete in England, though not in France. Hosier and Hozier still exist. Every Londoner knows of the “Cordwainers’ Hall,” though perhaps he has never seen it. It is not more than forty years ago that you might not uncommonly see “cordwainer” over a shop door instead of the strictly modern “shoemaker”; while in our directories “Cordwainer,”or “Cordiner,” or “Codner,” is a customary name. Sir Thopas is described thus:—

“His hair, his beard was like safroun,That to his girdle raught (reached) adown,His shoon of cordewane.”

We have only to turn cordwain into cordovan, to see that this was a specially excellent leather, imported in early times from Cordova, in Spain, to make “kid-boots.” In fact, the cordwainer was the West-end boot-maker. But this is not all. In the Directory for 1871 there appear twelve Suters, three Sowters, six Soutters, seven Souters, one Soutar, and three Soustars. I need not tell any Scotchman what this means, because every shoemaker or cobbler on the other side of the Tweed, except in very fashionable quarters, is still a “souter.” Souster is but one more instance of the feminine (?) termination.

I might prolong this chapter to any extent, but I must refrain. I might have called attention to our many “Glovers” and “Ganters,” who sold gloves, or our Gantletts and Gauntletts, who were in the same business, but were known best by the gauntlet that hung as a sign over the door. I might have pointed to our Girdlers and Bracegirdles, who were busy enough when the modern suspender was unknown; or to our many Pointers, who manufactured the points or tags by which hose and doublet were protected from divorcement. I might have asked the reader to survey with me the rows of Cheesemans, Cheesmans, Cheesewrights, Cheeswrights, and Firmingers, reminiscences of the good old farmers’ produce, which was the first, second and third course of every peasant’sdinner. I might have shown that our Challeners and Challoners manufactured or sold blankets, made at first in Chalons; or that our Helliers, or Hilliers, or Hillyers, were thatchers or tylers; that our Shoosmiths forged shoes for horses; that our Wrights worked chiefly in wood, our Smiths in iron. I might have run through a list of rural occupations, such as Coward for cow-herd, Calvert for calve-herd, Shepherd for sheep-herd, or “Herd” or “Heard” or “Hurd” itself for the tender of cattle in general. From all temptations of this kind I must stay myself. I will only say that if my reader should be interested enough to wish to carry on such investigation, he can do so in my book of “English Surnames,” which I think I can truly say is quite exhaustive of those now forgotten and obsolete titles of mediæval occupation. I have mentioned Wright: let me quote a rhyming pun on his good old title:

“At a tavern one night,Messrs. More, Strange, and Wright,Met to drink, and their good thoughts exchange;Says More, ‘Of us three,’The whole will agree,There’s only one Knave, and that’s Strange.’“‘Yes,’ says Strange, rather sore,‘I’m sure there’s one More,A most terrible knave, and a fright,Who cheated his mother,His sister, and brother.’‘Oh, yes,’ replied More, ‘that is Wright.’”

“‘Yes,’ says Strange, rather sore,‘I’m sure there’s one More,A most terrible knave, and a fright,Who cheated his mother,His sister, and brother.’‘Oh, yes,’ replied More, ‘that is Wright.’”

On the whole, Mr. More got the best of the argument.

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