thus related by Joseph Wybarne, Master of Arts of Trinity College, Cambridge, ten lunar cycles since :--

Romulus and Remus, as the sable goes, were nourisht by a shee wolf, indeede by Laurentia the wife of Faustulus, which woman obtained this worthy title for her unchaste and cruell behaviour.

Less fraught with historic meaning are those instances in which a name has been directly imposed by one individual on another, and accepted by the multitude. Here there is frequently all the arbitrariness that is exemplified in the handiwork of the original godfather. The law, indeed, will not recognise the caprice, as it will the exercise of the godfatherly right; for it lies, no doubt, within the power of each to use what name he pleases, but so long as he shows no disapproval of the action of his christeners (not of people in general) he is assumed to acquiesce in it. Even if circumstances should make it a matter of displeasure to a father that a son bears his name, or a matter of pecuniary loss, no length of personal enjoyment can give the exclusive title to the patronymic of dubiously remote descent. As it was once humorously put by the Vice-Chancellor Knight-Bruce, in the case of a worthy and benevolent merchant of the Strand, who derived much of his income from following pursuits kindred to those introduced by William Pökel -"All the Queen's subjects have a right, if they will, to manufacture and sell pickles and sauces, and not the less that their fathers had done so before them. All the Queen's subjects have a right to sell these articles in their own names, and not the less so that they bear the same name as their fathers." On the other hand, if a surname, or at the present day if one's Christian name, is displeasing to a man, or at least an Englishman, he is at perfect liberty to change it.

But there are many who have succeeded in pointing out to their fellow-citizens a path with which some third person should for ever after be conceived to have particular association. There is General Bee, who, in addressing his own men at Bull Run, likened Thomas Jonathan Jackson to a "stone-wall"; and Wordsworth, who in his lines on Chatterton seems to have hit the popular view with his "marvellous boy," better than Byron with his "mad genius"; and Douglas Jerrold, who transmuted Charles into "Good" Knight; and Hogg, the "Ettrick Shepherd," who found a synonym in "Ebony" for Mr. Blackwood; and Chenier, whose claim it is to have first. called Mme. de Genlis " Mère de l'Église"; and Scott, the originator of the phrase "The Crafty," in application to Archibald Constable; and he who gave to his schoolfellows, James and John Ballantyne, the redoubtable names of two characters in Carey's "Chrononhoton

thologos," "Aldiborontiphoscophornio," and "Rigdum Funnidos;" and lastly to put a point somewhere-the elder Pitt, who, in debate, fastened on Lord Grenville, the innocent interrogator, "Tell me where? tell me where?" the nickname "Gentle Shepherd," by humming a line of the popular song "Gentle shepherd, tell me where?" But the office of name-giving is one that kings have deigned to assume. A famous instance is related in Campbell's "Statistical Account of Scotland," with regard to James V. of that kingdom. Being benighted while out hunting and separated from his attendants, he entered a cottage in the midst of a moor, where, unknown, he was kindly received. At parting the King, pleased with his entertainment, said he should be glad to return the "gudeman " Donaldson's civility, and requested that the first time he came to Stirling he would call at the castle and inquire for the "Gudeman of Ballengeich." Donaldson called; when "his astonishment at finding that the King had been his guest afforded no small amusement to the merry monarch and his courtiers; and to carry on the pleasantry, he was thenceforth designated by James with the title of King of the Moors, which name and designation have descended from father to son ever since, and they have continued in possession," concludes the pleasant statistician, "of the identical spot till very lately." In England the first instance of kings commanding nobles to assume names occurred very early. According to Mr. Finlayson, who follows Dugdale, it was in 1106 when Nigel de Albini, who dismounted Robert Duke of Normandy at the battle of Tenchebray and brought him to the King, was directed to take for himself and posterity the surname of Mowbray-that of the attainted Earl of Northumberland. Of less peremptory character is an example Mr. Bardsley thinks he perceives in the bestowal by Edward III. on one Ralph of the surname of Swyft, especially as there is evidence that Ralph was one of the King's couriers. Centuries after the same name (Mr. Bardsley might have found further evidence in this) was given by Charles II. to Nicks, a highwayman of distinction. The form of this robber-gentleman's name then became Swiftnicks, so more strictly conforming to the requirements of a nick or eke name. And that he was entitled to it one is disposed to allow when the occasion of granting is known. For having robbed a gentleman at Barnet-time, five in the morning— he was on the bowling-green of York at six in the afternoon. His expedition won for him an acquittal; but, peril being over, he confessed to his acute judge, whose suspicions were not wholly allayed, the facts of the case. In marked contrast Elizabeth was pleased to call one of her courtiers the lawful possessor of the cognomen Swyft,

to wit Sir Robert Swyft, "Cavaliero." It would seem that while fulfilling his office of bowbearer to her at Hatfield Chase he had proved a merry companion. The office itself was one of considerable distinction, remarkably enough held by the Nigel above mentioned in the time of Rufus and First Henry, and continued down to the days of George III., when the Rev. Sir Charles Hill fulfilled functions destined to be no further called in requisition. Another coincidence presents itself in the fact that Sir Robert was connected, through a direct descendant, with another recipient of a royal nickname. The Hon. Mary Swyft was married to the notorious Robert Fielding. He it was whom Charles affected to call Handsome Fielding, and the people generally spoke of as Beau Fielding, but whose fortune at Court prevented neither maltreatment at the hands of the Knights of the Road, nor ridicule in the pages of "The Tatler," nor appearance in a court of justice on a charge of bigamy as recorded in the State Trials. The details of his trial give further evidence of the generality of the use of nicknames at the period, in the frequent reference to one Francisco Dürer, a person attached to one of the foreign ambassadors, willing to weave loose matrimonial bonds much in the same way as was accustomed to the clergy of Gretna Green, and spoken of as simply "The Father-in-Red." The appellation "Beau" was, it is very well known, not singular to Fielding. The life of Beau Nash has been written by Goldsmith. Beau Medlicote, cowardly as Fielding, has inglorious fame, on account of the tameness with which he withstood the caning Sir Robert Atkins was pleased to administer to him for consorting more than was to the baronet's taste with the baronet's wife; as well as the thrashing the ruffians Will Ogden and Tom Reynolds thought it in harmony with justice to give him, because to the cry, "Stand and Deliver," he was able to produce but two half-crowns, whereof one was brass. Indeed Beaux have prevailed from the days of Ricciardo and the "Decameron," on.

In a humorous tract of the Lord Somers collection is a list of imaginary "Acts and Orders," much in the style of notices of Parliamentary motions Punch from time to time ascribes to unlikely members. In it the act number sixteen runs thus:

An Act for the regulation of Names, that the well-affected may not be abused by Nick-names, but that every syllable have its full pronunciation, as General Monke must hereafter be called Generall Monkey.

The annotator appends the dry observation-" this jest would have been afterwards very ill-timed." But inopportuneness is a not infrequent accompaniment of the nickname, though it must be allowed,

for the most part, to the unwilling bearer. This was very distinctly the case in an incident of College's trial:

Sir George Jeffries and one of the Prisoner's witnesses had a paree of wit. It was one John Lunn, an old quondam drawer, at St. Dunstan's, alias Devil Tavern, and gifted like an army saint. He was once heard praying by the Spirit against the Cavaliers, and among other spiritual elegancies, he cried Scatter 'em, good Lord, scatter 'em, which gained him the Nickname of Scatter 'em. Sir George Jeffries was somewhat too busy in asking him questions; and, "Sir George," said he, "I never was upon my knees, as you were, before the Parliament. "Nor I," said Sir George, "for much, but you were so when you cried Scatter 'em."

Not more agreeable was the reminder given Lord Sandwich of his sobriquet, "Jemmy Twitcher." It will be remembered that he-who (it is worth a parenthesis) has added to our language the word "sandwich," because that according to his contemporary, Grose, the author of "the Classical Dictionary," "ham, dried tongue, or some other salted meat cut thin, and put between two slices of bread and butter, was said to be a favourite morsel with the Earl of Sandwich" -derived his name from his ill-timed appearance during the performance of "The Beggars' Opera," wherein Jemmy Twitcher is one of the characters; and that that and his shuffling gait have been commemorated by several poets not too right-heartily disposed towards him. These circumstances in mind, there would seem something a little awkward in a question put to him by the Rev. George Harvest. His lordship was canvassing for the vice-chancellorship of Cambridge, and Mr. Harvest, who had been his schoolfellow at Eton, went down to give him his vote. At dinner, attended by a large company, Lord John jested with Harvest about their boyish tricks, when the latter abruptly exclaimed: "Apropos ; whence do you, my lord, derive your nickname of Jemmy Twitcher ?" "Why," answered his lordship, "from some foolish fellow." "No," replied Harvest, "it is not from some, but everybody calls you so." But his lordship knew his guest's tastes, and thrusting a large slice of pudding on his plate, stopped his mouth for that time. After this event one is not surprised to find the eccentric clergyman was termed "The Absent Man." To that distinction Lessing himself, who in old age was so given to abstraction that he suffered himself to be turned from his own door by a servant not recognising him and denying that he was at home, with a "Very well, no matter; I'll call another time," had no higher title. For it is credibly related that having engaged to marry the daughter of Compton, Bishop of London, and the day being fixed, he unluckily on that day forgot himself. He had in fact been out fishing and

stayed beyond the canonical hour. The lady was justly indignant ; broke off the match; and possibly received some satisfaction in finding her precedent followed some years after by a second and equally offended bride.

Barebone, on the lucus a non lucendo principle-though, by the by, so far back as Shakespeare's time it was questioned, "May not lucus be draune a luce, seeing it is a grove shining with the torches of heathen idols ?"-was one of the many appellations appropriated to Sir John Falstaff. That worthy knight, whose cowardice is not historic, is thus connected with a personage of later history whose character agrees with his own only in absurdity. Praise-God Barebone, fanatic and leather-seller, zealous in either regard, seems to have been equipped with a name devised to emphasise the ludicrousness of the bearer's nature. If the same principle were applied to his two brothers, the lives of those gentlemen would, in representation, have served as caricatures of the nonsensical in all later generations. They were respectively styled "Christ came into the world to save Barebone" and "If Christ had not died, thou hadst been damned Barebone." And this is the point at which this piece of biography becomes justified in the present paper for the name of the youngest of the brethren was by popular abridgment simply "Damned Barebone." Sergeant Bind-their-kings-in-chains and Captain Hew-Agag-in-pieces-before-the-Lord, if we remember aright, were fabricated names, and applied generally to the Puritans; but if real their folly had not much exceeded that of those.

The willing assumption of barbarous names suggests consideration of the former-day custom of adopting forms aping the Greek or Latin and supposed to have connection with the baptismal names. Montaigne, who here as ever reminds one that egotism was no creation of the grammarians of Port Royal, says thus, Cotton translating, in his essay on names :

I am mightily pleased with Jacques Amiot, for leaving throughout a whole French oration the Latine names entire, without varying and dissecting them, to give them a French termination. It seem'd a little harsh and rough at first; but already custom, by the authority of Plutarch (whom he took for his example), has overcome that novelty. I have often wish'd that such as write chronicle histories in Latine, would leave our names as they find them, and as they are, and ought to be, for in making Vaudemont, Vallemontances, and metamorphosing names, to make them sound better with the Greek or Latine, we know not where we are, and with the persons of the men, lose the benefit of the story.

In reading Latin of the middle ages the truth of this will, perhaps with the majority of readers, have been experienced. It